Guild Wars 2

it’s acceptable if you are a skilled player.

For my ranger in dungeons I run full glass cannon with Longbow/shortbow, quickness on pet swap. I also take muddy terrain and Entangle for some excellent CC in places like fractals shaman boss and charr fractals charging warriors.

Morrar.1764:

Yeah also getting crap loot from high level fractals… I’m lucky when I even get a single rare now. Lower levels definitely award better loot when I run them on my alts. Could be a level scaling issue, could also be due to some system that reduces loot if you repeat the same activity on a single character.

With my Guardian I only run fractals and that seems to affect drop rates negatively. When I switch to an alt that I normally only use for farming, fractal drops seem to increase again (like 4-5 rares and sometimes even exotics).

I guess that’s the kittenty thing about those DR systems… You can only guess what involves DR and what is bad RNG luck. Unfortunately, ANet doesn’t seem to have a clue either and on top of that the system often bugs too… DR for me is the number one reason this game feels unrewarding; RNG is one thing, but RNG that has been tampered with is just appalling.

Actually noticed the same thing, I usually run on my guardian, in fact at one point I was doing 5 or more runs a day for many weeks on the guardian to cover dailies and help friends out. The drops while I do this on my guard are awful. I just started getting alts up, I now have a mesmer and ranger at 20, they seem to be getting a better deal, with around 2-3 rares per char per 20 daily. My guard who is running a 40, 30 and 20 daily will be lucky to see one rare, often times 0 rares in each run. Whether this is just really bad luck on my part or some sort of DR I do not know.

I used to make money out of fractals 40+ now I actually lose money because I make very little from the poor drops and have to foot the bill for food/consumables. Considering quitting fracts entirely.. unless u want skins (also very poor rng there), theyre not worth the time of day.

Lupi’s become boring/easy now, but his mechanic is still awesome and I hope Anet include more bosses like him. Still really enjoy alpha too.

Oh, and un-nerf fotm rewards. There I said it.

If this happens often, perhaps it is something you are doing to tick them off.

Iehova.9518:

“Casual” does not mean “bad”. Bads don’t deserve anything.

Stop being bad, improve your game, step it up and you’ll see how FUN comes to you on its own.

Agreed- Bad players are different from casuals.

Morpheus,

Examples of bad players can include: intentionally gimping themselves in poor gear sets (magic find), intentionally take the wrong utilities (an example being ranger not taking healing spring because they want their silly troll unguent or the other crappy heal skill, or a warrior in full signets because they are lazy) , charging off ahead of the team and dieing (trying to be the hero), Ignoring advise ( eg. telling mesmer to use Time warp at a certain point on a boss to make it more efficient, mesmer ignores advise), blaming others for their own failings ( eg. omg we are failing fotm 20! its because we don’t have a guardian or warrior, kitten you rangers and engineers!’ .. ‘we are failing shaman boss because you idiots aren’t using food! not because I’m a guardian and wont use reflect skills!’), Trying to facetank everything and failing, then blaming the game etc etc..

I might also include flaming at other players, be it in game or on the forums.

Example:

You don’t know me to say anything about my game. But now I know you. You are an a—s—s

^ These people do not deserve anything.

Casual players can include: People who have not played enough to know how a boss mechanic works, people who are inexperienced and do not know what to do once inside a dungeon, people who have not set up their gear/traits/utilities properly due to lack of understanding of what is required for a dungeon.

^These people deserve our time, patience and understanding.

Turgut.4397:

Dungeons are not fun. Plain and simple. I 100% agree with the OP. Now there’s all the elitist GW2 fan boys defending it, as their own ‘challenge’ and that it’s fine as it is.

Far from it.

There’s challenge. And then there’s completely, and utterly stupid. Dungeon’s are simply not fun, because you’re bombarded with knockdowns, stuns, conditions, launches, knockbacks, etc. More than you can handle with the endurance recharge rate, all the stability/cc removal skills. That’s the problem. There is simply NO balance in dungeons.

Now some are saying, players enjoy different parts of the game, while the others enjoy this and that. Why can’t all aspects of the game be fun for everyone? Or at least do-able?

I’ve been playing since pre-launch, and I’ve probably only done half the dungeons. I regret to say each one was a frustrating experience. But why wouldn’t it be, when I’m being cut down in seconds, even in my tank gear/build, from constant AoE and CC?

I can dodge attacks, sure. I can block for a few seconds, ok. Knocked down? I’ll just pop that stability. Conditions on me, heal/remove them. Oh wait. The mobs seem to have no cooldown on any of these abilities, nor a cast bar of some sort (major flaw in the game’s design, KEY aspect of GW1) so I’m unable to react in time. All my major CC removal skills are on minute long cooldowns, while I’m being tossed around like a ball and unable to do anything while everyone’s dying and desperately hoping they can get a revive or two in, before the mobs go on another multi-CC frenzy every second.

The MAIN issue with dungeons is BALANCE. To be fair, ANet hasn’t disappointed me with balance (give or take a few cough OP classes/builds on new expansions cough) and have fixed the problems regarding them (eventually).

Well, inb4 the ‘go l2p nub’ crowd show up, and blindly defend the most terribly flawed area of the game.

Tbh with you I don’t have any issue with playing the dungeons and I’m no fan girl, they’re not bad in my books. The learning curve can be a steep one for the casual player, everyone remembers their first AC at lvl 35, it was a travesty! As a hardcore myself I would say that after a week or so you start to understand mechanics and when to dodge, what builds to run and what traits, it all starts to become entrenched in your mind, reactions come naturally, and within months you find yourself running ‘just another boring dungeon’ in a full zerker set, trying to get the run done ASAP so you can move onto the next one.

What irks me is the awful rewards. They just aren’t worth doing once you have your gear set (very quick and easy to get once you’ve got into the groove) and have run them enough to grind out a legendary. You have no real reason to return after that.. After explorable dungeons, you find yourself grinding away at FOTM for skins you know may never drop… And none of your friends want to join you because they know how pointless fotm is.

This is not so much a learn to play issue as it is a practice makes perfect thing. You know how to play, I’m sure, but when it comes to a dungeon you may just need more time and (perhaps) a better team.

Ps- I certainly agree that dungeons are far from perfect, there are some things that defiantly need to be looked at. One of those being trash mob hitpoints which discourage a great deal of people from killing them and another being NPC reliance resulting in bugs/glitches that stop the dungeon from being able to be finished.

For someone like me who finds this dungeon easy, has every stat set, and doesn’t need money any more…

Well… SE skins are ugly as kitten.

LordByron.8369:

people run fotm because its fun and because they want rare skins..
Everybody knows the rewards are the worst in game…..

its quite clear they try to tell players what to do changing loot and stuff…

When they released fotm it dropped better than anything other…they overnerfed it and buffed other activities rewards…

Resulting in what we have now.

Btw their priority is not drops they first need to fix unfun things against players..
Dredge, cliffside and harpies on top of all but also underwater.

I have been running this very aggressively as of late in the hopes of attaining Fotm skins. I just came to the rather sad realisation that in the time I’ve wasted working my kitten off for one measly fotm skin, I could have attained another legendary.. And I still haven’t gotten that kitten fotm skin lol. There seems to be a trend when it comes to overnerfing things with A-net doesn’t there. XD

My opinion-

-An idea of mine is- Put less HP in trashmobs but add more trash Mobs- (GW1 DOA style.) Killing fast then relies more on skilful pulls and group synergy than just burning down HP. (Probably good reasons why they haven’t done this, but just a thought of mine)

-Add meaningful drops to them, not trash blues/whites and greens. How about some money? Or some skins? Give them a real chance to drop something so people are motivated to kill them.

- Boss mechanics- these are probably getting a rework, I quite like the new AC boss fights, my only issue being the path where the entire fight relies on the NPC warmaster grast. Relying on an NPC is a big no no.

ATM – once you’ve got your dungeon gear sets and your legendary- no real reason to return to dungeons. I believe more skins should be added to the game to motivate people, and it would be wonderful if the way to attain a bunch of them, was through killing trash mobs in dungeons or achieving extra goals (kinda like the bonus in GW1 missions).

I also believe that open world is still quite empty, many many zones are pretty much dead, and they are beautiful and stunning landscapes and places to be.. but there’s nothing to do, and nothing to lure people there. It would be great if new skins incorporated into the game we also used to lure people out into dead areas.

The grammar in this post was exceptional. I give it 10 elitist stars out of 10.

Did the new AC, it was fun for the first couple runs, then it became boring again I hope they add new goals, new things to aspire to. Having already got my legendary, the main and alts geared etc.. I really want something new to aim for.. atm im stuck working on grinding RNG fractal skins which feels more like a job than something fun >_< I think it would be great if they added a metric kitten load of more armour and weapon skins, with new ways to get em, (including new and exciting dungeons :P )

Fractals even worth doing? I just did another 50 runs according to my relics and have seen about 3 rings ( that I dont need) and 0 skins. The drops are poor and the salvages on them are pretty depressing. It seems alot more profitable to do any other dungeon.. it’s just a shame I want the skins so bad -_-

pullnointer.1476:

please stop using the word “carried”, it has nothing to do with reality. anet wants us to be able to level however we please even at the expense of others in your party(they said it) so I thought I might ask.

Edited for clarity.

Easier way to level is crafting and event farming WvW

Would be nice if we had control of all pet abilities, not just their f2 :P

Zenith.7301:

swiftpaw.6397:

For PVE I have doing full glass cannon-

Zerker stats with full ruby accessories, and as you say, all glass, not so much cannon.

I am now after a build that will give the BEST utility value to my group, I want to be appreciated and make a difference in dungeons, in particular high lvl fotms, on my ranger. I thought full glass cannon and try to contribute with max DPS would be best but I’m just not feeling it.

Crazy I know, but I am seeing this class as a real challenge that I wanna overcome.

Anyone got any effective builds for Fotm 40-50?

Traps with shortbow+sword/torch. Muddy Terrain is pretty good for gathering groups for your allies to cleave/aoe, and spike trap will provide further control while flame trap provides good damage and a fire field.

It’s the best you can do for your group other than pet rezzing on Jade Maw.

Ranger is like the engineer and necro in that their pve damage is horrible relative to warrior/thief and his utility is completely kitten compared to mesmer timewarp/feedback/null/stealth and guardian/ele boons.

Thanks for your advise,
would you happen to have the specific trait/gear stats?

For PVE I have doing full glass cannon-

Zerker stats with full ruby accessories, and as you say, all glass, not so much cannon.

I am now after a build that will give the BEST utility value to my group, I want to be appreciated and make a difference in dungeons, in particular high lvl fotms, on my ranger. I thought full glass cannon and try to contribute with max DPS would be best but I’m just not feeling it.

Crazy I know, but I am seeing this class as a real challenge that I wanna overcome.

Anyone got any effective builds for Fotm 40-50?

It is rather annoying that a key mechanic of this boss fight relies solely on this NPC. I believe it would be better if we had this changed to something like Path 2, where the players can activate the cannons, and in this case shield, themselves. This would negate all the hassle of watching the NPC race in and die repeatedly, or delay activating his shield.

The New AC is fun and moving in the right direction, but soon I will get bored of that again and there wont be anything to lure me in there again… UNLESS they add new rewards, eg. skins, that I can work towards.

I only had 3 failed attempts for all the ones I needed. I was lucky. I was doing sets of 10s.

my BF on the other hand just did 16 attempts at sets of tens, so 160 attempts.. He only succeeded once and has now decided he doesn’t want a legendary any more.

(Of course this just means more work for me to get him his silly legendary staff behind his back… at least it will be romantic right?)

Distaste.4801:

ArenaNet needs to make a decision about dungeons. Either they are going to be very hard but rewarding(piece of good loot each run) or they are going to be easy but you need to run them a lot. Currently they are hard but also not rewarding, that is what drives people away from dungeons. I know it’s the reason I don’t do more dungeons. You don’t have much fun in dungeons, they take up a good chunk of time and you certainly don’t get rewarded well enough for them. Whoever thought it was a good idea to make people run a dungeon dozens of times to get a set of armor is masochistic.

Rewards are poor, I agree. I would like to see that as they update their dungeon’s difficulty, that rewards are increased appropriately. I have no real motivation to enter dungeons any more as I have my legendary and have all the gear sets and tokens I will ever need for all my alts.

I would propose new skins- each dungeon chest with a chance to drop unique skins, or drop a special token to be traded for more kitten looking skins. This game sure lacks skin variety and I think that’d be a great way to kill two birds with one stone.

Only ever seen one drop, 26 fotm on maw trash mob, it was leaf of kudzu for some random pug in the team. In my many many many many dungeon runs, I would say that this is not a viable option when it comes to trying to get a precursor :P

Doable? sure, I’ll buy that.

In the same time as a bunch of geared lvl 80’s? No.

jrod.5879:

I agree. Necs can have multiple minions, so rangers should have multiple pets, and be able to have multiple available to fight. I have even considered recommending that rangers could have a dedicated healing and boon pet (one that doesn’t fight). And while we’re on the topic, how about armor for pets???

Like the idea of a support/boon pet. This would be a great asset to dungeons, and improve the ranger’s currently poor group utility.

Had alot of bad rng lately, 10 runs of 30+ one ring, no skins.
As I don’t need rings, and am after skins, this is annoying :P.

I do note, that I have gotten waaay more rings in the past, say 6 times out of 10.

Maybe just bad luck, or maybe a sneaky change, who knows :P

lol kicking at lvl 10 for no AR?
Wow.

I want to play my ranger, but every time I join a pug, they are so crap I have to get on the guardian and just carry them through.

That is the huge difference in class right there. The superior amount of group utility that a guardian has vs. a ranger will always make it the ‘better’ class in a pug’s eyes, same with warrior/mesmer/w/e.

Another thing that makes even me scoff at taking a pug ranger is the likelihood that they are awful. A Pug of any class has this chance of being awful, but for some reason, ranger has a higher chance of having an awful player behind it. Why? ranger takes more skill to play (and be effective) than your average warrior who mashes his keyboard.

I do not kid when I say most rangers I have encountered so far have been awful and a drag to the team. They camp Shortbow 1 auto attack, don’t even bother trying to flank, and let their pet just run in and die. Don’t even bother to switch the pet out, or even switch weapons to maximise DPS. Now how, when I am recruiting pugs, how do I filter out those people? It’s just not worth the time, I’d rather just kick and get a class that is easier to play and thus will have a higher chance of being more constructive for the team. – That’s the mentality atm, and I really do believe that some classes, including ranger need a buff to their skills and/or traits in dungeons only.

The reason I believe this has not been done is because those few who CAN play the ranger correctly, are at an acceptable level of contribution in dungeons and come (almost) up to par with other classes.. meaning that if there was a buff,there is a possibility they would become ‘OP’ and people would complain.

JJBigs.8456:

Why would you expect a response.

A. You posted in the wrong forum. There is a “Bugs” Section. Not “Dungeons”
B. Obviously, you are not the first to report this. Why would they reply to every duplicate thread.
C. Its not a game breaking bug. While reporting something unexpected, such as AC End boss not being able to be interrupted is potentially game changing, this doesn’t affect much.
D. You took jokes from the old thread and expected it to be a hit or people wouldnt realize these were old.
E. Posting hi devs, does not make your post more likely to be responded too.
Furthermore, your post seems to be a post just saying its funny in a way, by putting in jokes, and not asking for a response or declaring it a bug or anything, so it doesnt provoke a response in that sense because the poster did not ask for one

You ruined a perfectly good ‘look at me!’ thread.

I have renamed him to spider-mental due to his super sexy spider legs.

Stopped investing money and time into my ranger ages ago and am happy I did.

3 gear sets, many many different builds and it just never came up to par with my other classes in dungeons, it was selfish of me to take the ranger when I could have taken my guardian or mesmer.

I really worked hard on this class, but It just doesn’t do as much as another class can. It’s fun, and I REALLY want this class to work, but it’s still subpar…

And I don’t feel comfortable taking it in dungeons when I know I can be giving my team more on another class.

At least in WvW the class has some use, but not enough for me to feel good about the amount of time I wasted on it.

I just want my FPS back please!

Getting alot of FPS lag when fighting masses of gravelings that I never got before.
Not sure what’s up with that

I’m using Nvidea Gforce 560ti.

I just want.. the karma back, it probably wasn’t that much… but… I MISS IT T_T

I just want you to know Anet… I still love you.

I usually get asked to get off ‘X’ class and get ON my guardian for dungeons.

Gearcheck before you start. Many many many times I have caught people with little to no AR trying to hitch a ride on a 30+ team, or full MF sets. I get called scum, elitist, bad, w/e I really don’t care, I don’t make groups to carry people.

Oh and yes, you can always remove people at any time now which helps.

Wolfgang Michael.8217:

Who in their right mind would pay gold to gain a spot to complete a dungeon. Arah being a hard one at that. Anyone who has completed Any path in Arah will know the amount of pure joy and sense of achievement is not the same by others carrying you to the end.

And here I was thinking why people are crying about the lack of end game content.

Not everyone feels the same way you do. People do buy these runs.

If people want to buy it, then fine, it’s not like the dungeon master title means kitten in this game anyway lol.

This man is offering a legitimate service, whether everyone wants it or not, I dont think he should be derailed for it.

You can burst him down pretty fast with a good team.

My Bf is new to this, just linked it to him.. saved me the trouble of explaining it all, thanks for the great guide, hope he utilises it before it gets the nerf hammer!

Linguistically Inept.6583:

anyone requiring lvl 80 for AC, CM and TA are terrible players imo
ive had brilliant; fast runs with sub 80 players; ive also had horrible train wreck runs with full 80 exo players

- more than that; players should check lower level characters achievement points to ascertain whether or not they’re a ‘newbie’

TBH I dont even mind the noobies so long as they come prepared with appropriate gear and traits for their level. I’ve taken a few in the past and as long as they listen to instruction there isn’t too much of an issue. I find they are often very eager to learn and do the right thing which certainly helps.

SynfulChaot.3169:

swiftpaw.6397:

My advise: Gear up your lowbies. There’s a reason sometimes even I will turn my nose up at lvl 35’s in an 80 AC run, it’s because they’re in green, blue and white gear and haven’t invested in any traits. You really do drag a team down like that, and you can change it.

If you are lvl 35, I expect you to have geared up appropriately for the dungeon.
Go craft yourself a set of rares – armour and accessories, it’s not difficult or expensive, and it will mean you will contribute to the team in a fair manner.

Invest your all the trait points you have.

Asking one to ping gear is not something that should be done. But at the same time, if you are running a sub-80 in dungeons you should be running blues (minimum) or greens (greatly preferred) close to your current level. And you should be traiting properly as you level as well. If you are expecting others to play well, you should as well.

Sergoros.4398:

Leo G.4501:

But the point I keep commenting on is, the difference in stats between a lvl 80 and an on-level character inside a downscaled instance is mild-to-minimum when it was tested….4 months ago. As of less than a month ago, another change was added to decrease this difference further. To what degree is still unknown.

Wrong. Try it again. Gear check is already a yesterday argument. Right now we argue difference that exists, cause 35 lvl have no acces to all traits, food, runes, sigils and etc.

The only real difference is runes and sigils, which rarely make or break a build. Also, I don’t recall the last time I saw anyone run food in dungeons that was not MagiFind.

I do not often gear check, but when I do it is because I am running high level fractals, or I am taking lowbies into dungeons, and I feel these are times when that is appropriate to avoid issues later on. Gear checking is not something I enjoy doing, but it has often times saved my team alot of trouble.

Things I Would like to see:

1.) Rangers that weapon and pet swap, and don’t camp SB skill 1.
2.) Guardians using their kitten virtues and dont use multiple signets.
3.) Mesmer actually doing something other than standing around GS skill 1 and TW every so often.
4.) Ele actually attunement swapping ( yes, you can do that!)
5.) Warrior without 5 signets.
6.) Thief not camping Shortbow.
7.) Engineer not using a racial skill for their elite ( yes I have actually seen this alot)
8.) Necro not using all minions utilities.

All of the above is depressing.

There are so many people wanting their lowbies to be taken in the lvl 80 groups, why not just form your own lowbie groups? I see them on the lfg a fair bit, people running their lowbie alts through, looking for more like-minded and like-leveled players.

My advise: Gear up your lowbies. There’s a reason sometimes even I will turn my nose up at lvl 35’s in an 80 AC run, it’s because they’re in green, blue and white gear and haven’t invested in any traits. You really do drag a team down like that, and you can change it.

If you are lvl 35, I expect you to have geared up appropriately for the dungeon.
Go craft yourself a set of rares – armour and accessories, it’s not difficult or expensive, and it will mean you will contribute to the team in a fair manner.

Invest your all the trait points you have.

As you level, craft the next set and so on… I have done this for all my alts as I go and it has led to a much better experience in the dungeon and with my fellow pugs. As you dungeon your way up through the levels, the money from them will not only pay for your gear as you go, but you will have plenty of gold left over.

Many times I get verbal abuse for letting the lvl 35 in the group and asking him to ping his gear, he yells that I am an elitist when I tell him his whites are not acceptable. I don’t think so. I just do not think it’s fair on my team to carry someone to that much of a degree.

By all means go ahead, make dailies account bound too if you have to. I’m not about to run through all my alts for dailies anyway. I am just bored of doing the same thing on the same class, and I feel I shouldn’t get punished for trying to do it on another, geared and ready class. Part of making this game last for me, is doing the same content on different classes and I believe that should give the same reward. I’ve already done it more than enough times on my guardian main and it’s become boring and actually not fun at all.

Getting the ascended amulets on all my alts is gonna take months , I guess I just have to focus on getting it on the main chars first.. but it kinda sucks as it discourages me from wanting to play less geared alts. Would be nice to see these amulets offered as a fractals token reward also, got a ton of those lying around with no use :P

Spent 1.2 mil karma, with the aim of getting the mini. Finally got it, and a bunch of other crap. Normally I’d feel cheated, but seeing as I have nothing else to do with the karma, I really don’t feel anything about it lol. Back to watching it pile up again…

If you right click the tokens atm it gives you the option to deposit them. This option is greyed out, which leads me to believe that some time in the future, they will give us a collectible storage option for them.

I find that she bugs out at mortars when people skip the mobs comming up to it. The oozes, the gravelings. The best way to avoid this bug ( and it works!)

is this: As you run up past the oozes, NO ONE enter the orange circle on the map.. you know the big one indicating where Detha has to put her mortars?
Stand outside of it and wait until all the mobs chasing you have reset. Wait until detha has caught up to you and isn’t agro’d on anything. Then proceed to enter the orange circle and she will be fine.

Now because this solution works, I wonder if the issue itself is because Detha is torn between her mortars and fighting mobs when she enters the orange circle, and this breaks the chain of events, leaving her just standing there like a potato.

I just get this feeling that A-Net will come in with a fiery vengeance and just nerf the ever-loving kitten out of D/D to the point that we’ll all be running scared to another weapon set… or class. Let’s just say I have trust issues when it comes to A-Net’s idea of what ‘balancing’ is.

All we can hope for is that it’s minor enough to keep D/D viable, its the only fun wep set for me