Guild Wars 2

Khal Drogo.9631:

swiftpaw.6397:

Khal Drogo.9631:

Common denominator = mesmer. Everyone should roll one

More often than not I run without a mesmer, although I am usually on my guardian which probably compensates for that. It’s perfectly doable without a mesmer, and in some cases it’s been easier.. not sure why.. just the DPS was good I guess.

Its because of Time Warp. You can hit it when your team is being overwhelmed to clear as many as possible before next wave spawns or when u need to res 2 downed teammates quickly.

Yes I’m well aware of timewarp, what I’m trying to say is, it’s not needed to be able to complete it unless your team has slow DPS.

I wouldn’t want people to say ‘oh we don’t have a Mesmer so we may as well not even try.’

Khal Drogo.9631:

Common denominator = mesmer. Everyone should roll one

More often than not I run without a mesmer, although I am usually on my guardian which probably compensates for that. It’s perfectly doable without a mesmer, and in some cases it’s been easier.. not sure why.. just the DPS was good I guess.

Latency.3907:

I’d like to see this done with a group that lacks both warriors, guardians, and ele.

Something like:
engineer + ranger(x2) + necro + mesmer

A lot of these dps gates are unfair to professions which lack the require dps and party boons.

Usually in pugs i’ve run, its easy enough to measure up the party in encounters before this to understand whether an all-in is possible. Testing the waters with the first and second set of spawns in the room should always be done.

For low dps groups, usually a combination of all-in fighting in the first half and kiting with 2-2 splits in the second half is a compromise.

I did this smoothly about a day ago with this composition of guildies:

2 rangers, 2 mesmers, 1 thief.

The trick to doing it with rangers is geared and knowledgeable. Myself and my ranger friend were glass cannon with longbow/shortbow and constantly switching out pets and weapons to gain fury and quickness, and lining up targets for massive aoe damage. It’s not something the average pug ranger is capable of in most instances sadly, If they’re sitting there spamming skill 1 on the shortbow, it’s not gonna work out. We ended up dps’ing everything down so fast there was no need for a heavy class. No downed or deaths.

It’s entirely possible but with pugs I am not so sure how it’d go.

444 fractals down, no skin.

RNG.

When I walk past someone with a fractals skin, I dont think ‘wow, they must have done alot of fractals, be a good player and worked hard for it.’

I think ‘Wow they got lucky, sure wish I was.’

I’ve seen people on their first 20 daily get a skin, while I’ve been doing 40 daily for ages and got ring after useless ring, or nothing at all. There’s nothing worthy about these skins, it’s all a matter of who got lucky.

It would be nice if I could trade all these pristine tokens in for something, atm I have no use for them, even all my alts are decked out in rings and bags, and I have a storage character filled with even more of them,regular tokens and fractal bags that have nowhere to go.

I believe the jan 12 update will fix that, ( I hope) >_<

You’ll get your post removed if you name and shame. Just a heads up.

Guardians in dungeons: USE YOUR KITTEN VIRTUES.
Srsly.
Try it.
I dare you.
It’s good.
Trust me.

I do find the high HP enemies a complete snoozefest.

More mechanics, less of this DPS everything down, would be appreciated.

There’s no reason to kick someone at the end of Fotm Anyway, it’s not like they can get another person in, the instance will just kick everyone. The only real reasons people would kick in fotm is because :

1: They’re just griefers.
2: You performed terribly and dragged the team down.
3: You got into some sort of argument with them and they decided to kick you as revenge.

The GW1 party system was terrible. When you went into a dungeon with pugs, you were stuck with them the entire run, whether you liked it or not. As an example, DoA- you specify the build you want people running, you get in, and halfway through a rather painful and slow run, you realize one of your players is running around with the wrong build, or someone leaves and you cannot replace them, thus screwing over your whole run. It discouraged people from pugging, because you couldn’t trust people not to ruin your entire run.

In GW2, If one of my teammates has to leave, I am able to replace him, if one of my teammates decides to be an kitten and run around half naked, or in a magic find set when asked not to, I can kick him and move on, instead of saying.. well kitten we’ll just have to carry this guy and hope it works..or well kitten I guess we’ll have to restart the whole instance.

I do however believe that you should be able to view and screenshot party chat after leaving, and have the option to report griefers.

I believe you are referring to AC explorable. Story mode is level 30 requirement, Exploreable is 35. meaning that if you took a 30 in there, alot of your skills would either hit very poorly, or get glanced and not hit at all.

If you mean lvl 35, then yes, you will do less than a level 80.

However. If you take the time to put full rares on your level 35, rune it and sigil it, and invest all your trait points available, you can still consider yourself a good asset to your team at that level imo.

I just got done a run on my 43 alt, I realized I was doing far more than the 80 Warrior who was full signets, only using a rifle and died every single encounter… don’t even get me started on the amount of racial skills I saw used by others in the party.

yeh it’s actually bugging me too, I have multiple sets I switch to between fights, including my arah weapon sets and it REALLY ticks me off when I hit some random blue GS in my inventory by mistake, or put the wrong focus on. Same problem with my corrupted weapon sets too.

hell, even put just a little red tick in the top corner or something, It doesn’t have to be pretty, just different! gah!

Ive actually thought about doing this, me and 4 other guildies would run the dungeon as a party of 5, we’d get to the end, one (or more) of us would leave to get the payers in and finish, we’d then split the money between all 5 of us. No need to take poor unsuspecting pugs and kick them. Perhaps that’s what this PR guild is/was doing? I don’t really have a problem with that, but lets not jump to conclusions.

I believe people make the assumption, that if you are under 80, that you must have kitten gear. They leave before you even get the chance to ping it. I am happy to take under 80’s so long as they have prepared the character with rare gear, runes and sigils. This is cheap and easy, and I do not think it’s asking too much, it will also ensure that they are making an adequate contribution to the dungeon run.

Tbh the only thing that gets under my skin is when people intentionally gimp their characters with bad gear when they have ample access to a decent set for their level and class, to see what they can get away with, this rings especially true for Magic Finders.

TL:DR- As long as you’ve put the best gear you can on your lowbie, you are welcome in my parties.

Mungrul.9358:

They don’t need a token system; they already have karma which is criminally under-utilised. The just need to add more things that can be bought with karma, such as exotic trinkets, more weapons & armour, town clothes, etc.

I absolutely agree with this, there is so much karma in this game and so little to use it on!
even after getting my legendary, It’s just all piled in drops and jugs, and accumulated in my inventory, and I have nothing to use it on now! This game really needs some new skins and items to for people to go for, and this would be a huge motivation to get them back into low level areas an dead zones if they handed out enough karma to make them worthwhile, and added more skins and items to get with it.

Coming from NA Aion, where you had to wait ages for new content, this isn’t so bad in comparison. But that game had some serious grind that kept you busy and took your mind off it. I hate grind, but at this point in time I have run out of things I want to work towards in this game

With this news, it’s time to take a break from GW2 until after march I suppose. Any updating to existing content will probably not be a big enough motivation to me unless the rewards are new and unique (skins, mini’s, vanity items), worth the time, and fun to go about achieving.

That being said, I cant wait to see what they do add, I have yet to be disappointed.

haven’t had much luck in getting weps at higher lvl fracs (yet)

It takes a while to get a group on the lfg site, even longer to get a good one (yes, even at 40+ there’s idiots in magic find.. how they got that high, I don’t know… -_-)

I usually make my own group with guildies then look for 1, sometimes 2 more on the site. people seem more interested in coming when they see the group’s almost full… everyone’s in a hurry these days

Kveldulf

/15 chars

Jabberwock.9014:

Man, I guess it’s true. Can’t compete with that dps when mobs just stand and take 100b so easily. Really badly designed move imo, and way too op against the dumb ai in this game. I really hope anet gives eles better dps at some point… rolling with the lowest hp and armor class, I expected the best dps to compensate. But then I find out our only viable build is essentially a tank (bunker build).

Unfortunately the worst problem can’t really be solved, and that is crappy eles giving my class a bad name. Guess I’ll have to roll a warrior even though they’re so kitten boring… sigh

Owning an 80 ranger is also thoroughly depressing, not only is it mediocre damage (and you have to work really hard to maintain it) and the pet is a hindrance more often than not (pulling unwanted mobs and kitten), it cant even bring much to the table in terms of support. Take solace in the fact that you can at least be useful to your party as an ele, especially if you are skilled.

I have a guardian, this is also an excellent choice for dungeons if you find warriors boring, they require a bit more attention and skill to play and are a huge asset to the party as well.

Eles are always welcome in my parties, and I do a pretty fast run. I wouldn’t blame the class for poor runs, I would l blame the players of your class. I’ve seen some very sloppy eles. I also have seen some amazing eles that I would take over a warrior every time. Unfortunately playing a good ele takes skill that I have noticed most pick ups don’t have., where as playing warrior is a faceroll to achieve the same effectiveness. So I guess a pug on lfg is going to prefer the warrior.

Even when pugging, instead of kiting this part, I instruct my party to kill everything. We just burn everything down, starting with smokes and the mages, the hard hitters. With me as a GS Guardian, I pull all the mobs together (Binding Blade) and as the main target gets burst down, the surrounding mobs are burned down pretty fast by the aoe. This is a process of target calling, fast dps and smooth crowd control. I simply refuse to kite these mobs and out of my past 36 runs I’ve only failed this part once (with magic find pugs). You don’t need any specific class to do this, I have done this many a time with my ranger and no I repeat no heavy armor classes in my party, or mesmers. I actually find this is a more difficult encounter if you choose to kite.

I think what needs more of look at is path 3, I’d love to be able to take pugs on that but they are always very reluctant to go, resulting in having to take guildies

It can be noted that on path 2, more often than not, I have to explain to my pugs the concept of actually killing these mobs instead of kiting. many have never done it before an are genuinely surprised by how easy it is. Try giving it a go sometime, as long as you don’t have signet baddies and magic finder’s this part is not so bad.

I have changed to ranged pets now as well, even when micro managing, sending it in and out, in and out, having it on passive, the stupid thing it still manages to die. At least with the ranged pet it can stay alive at the back with me and be up for pet switching quickness. It’s kitten-all damage of course, but at least it doesn’t run in and die, thus doing no damage. I use the two devourers, they give some bleeds/poison at least, and they can tunnel away if meleed, although they always appear to do it at the most inappropriate times, I wish I could command that ability.. kinda like those crappy moas with the 3K aoe heal that it wastes on someone with 95% health.

And we all forget, that a ‘Ranger’ in GW1 didn’t have to rely so heavily on his pet to do damage.

Sarcasmic.6741:

Again, so much use of the word “exploit”. I prefer to think of it as advantageous terrain use and knowledge of enemy AI.

Agreed. Furthermore..

I like to think of my block list as ‘The White Knight List.’

I remember a while back, and I mean a while back, there was some talk from a dev about adding a vendor that could re-exchange your gear back for tokens if you had made a mistake… that talk soon disappeared though, not sure whatever happened to the idea.

Kill.6973:

Part of the big reason why i bought this game was when ANET said “we don’t want you to feel like you are grinding, blah blah”. This is just a flat out lie.

Dungeons? This is just the biggest grind of them all. Why is it we have to grind the same dungeon more than 20 times just to get the armor, weapons are not even included.

But wait, dungeon x is just for looks. What you really need is dungeon y, for the stats. That means you must farm the another dungeon….20 times.

What if you have an alt. You must farm couple of dungeons…20 times.

Then we have Fotm, dear god. I’m not even going to start on that one.

What i’m proposing? one or both of the following solution.

1) Make dungeons less time consuming, but rise the difficulty level. This would mean right before we start a dungeon we can choose either:
Hard mode- Increased difficulty.
Easy mode – same difficulty as we have right now.

Keep in mind these two options balance out between the people who actually wants a challenge and people who just want to get the gear quickly.

2) Increase the amount of tokens after completing the dungeons. What i’m about to say might be extreme but at least enough tokens for one set of armor. That will mean you have to farm the dungeon at least 6 times, which to me is a reasonable amount. Don’t forget about the weapons so completing the dungeon will require from 2-6 extra more times.

The dungeons are fun (respect to Rob), however it becomes tiresome and boring once we have to grind it to get endless amount of gear. This is just my opinion, the end-game dungeon fanatics will probably rant on this one. I can see it coming.

What do you mean by weapons are not even included? They offer those from dungeons too. Unless you (probably) mean you have to do 20x of X dungeon just to get armor.

Tbh I don’t have a problem with getting gear from dungeons, I actually find it easier than having to come up with the 10G to craft a set for my alts.

My problem is not with dungeon grind for gear, but with now having got every dungeon gear set I want and not having much left to do in that area. I want some real goals to return to those dungeons. ATM going back just to make money is just not an exciting prospect.. Of course, in a game where money is scarce, dungeons are a main source of income for me.. but I don’t really want anything to spend the money on, and doing the same dungeon over and over can get rather bland, fractals included.

It’s nice, to bring friends and make a real social experience out of it, but it’d be great if they added some new content to them. Perhaps a Hard Mode version (as they had in GW1) with different, more challenging mechanics for the boss fights, and the reward being a Pristine ‘insert dungeon name’ Token. With these tokens, after amassing a bunch of them, you could go for a new dungeon armor set, same stats as the regular exotics offered, but cooler skins.

They have improved… but they are still lacking sadly. You need to put alot of effort into your ranger to be able to achieve what other classes can do with less. That said, it’s a fun class.

Malediktus.9250:

voidwater.2064:

Why does this bother you? You do not have to participate, it does not constrain you in any way, why do you want to restrict the freedom of others?

Don’t try to impose your vision of “proper gameplay” on everyone else.

Also if this is ok you might as well make dungeon tokens tradeable.

That would actually be awesome. I have an entire character with all bag slots filled with tokens I dont need, just sitting there waiting to convert and play the RNG game with the mystic salvage kit.. would love to sell them!

laharl.8435:

In my experience, fractal loot beats AC hands down. I receive 4-8 rare, the occasional exotic and lodestones every fractal run. AC never comes close to that for me.

I think it’s all a matter of RNG, as an example, last night I did both fractals 31 and 32 and got a measly 1 gold worth of trash ( including some very poor salvages.) + no lodestones.

Doing all 3 paths of AC takes a fraction of the time, and I would have made more money.

The thing is, there is a certain amount of money that you can receive from AC that isn’t affected by RNG (unless the path bugs of course).. the boss mobs drop certain amount money, the champion breeders drop a certain amount of money, at the end you receive a certain amount of money. These factors are only affected by one thing -If you are using a food that causes 40% more money to drop from mobs. But you never receive less.

When doing fractals, it’s hit and miss, some days you come out more profitable, other days you feel you’ve wasted a good deal of time. When doing AC, you can always have a minimum expectation of the amount of money you will make for the 3 paths, anything on top (rare/exotic drops) is a bonus. So it’s good (if you can) to do both, maybe on those off days when fractals hates you, pop in and do a quick AC for guaranteed money.

Svarty.8019:

Exedore.6320:

Against thieves, I rely on the Retaliation boon to do a lot of the work. Glass cannon thieves will kill themselves on it. I use GS and Binding Blade will hit thieves in stealth as long as they’re in range. Do that quick, pull them in, then use Whirling Wrath and that will help finish them off. GS symbol also grants retaliation, so drop it and sit in it to get the full 4 stacks initially.

I used to be able to survive using retaliation against thieves, but it feels as though there has been a stealth-nerf to toughness, this is the real reasoning behind my original post. Of course, I have no solid evidence, but over the past week I have felt a lot weaker than before.

A few of my guildies and I are of the same opinion, If anyone has any info/data to support this i’d like to see it.. I’ve certainly had to be alot more cautious lately.

Iehova.9518:

Seriously. People. If Arah is SO EASY, why don’t you run me through it? Name the time and I’m there. Name your price. I can stomp ANY other dungeon with NO problem.

I’ll speak to my DM group about it.

Arah is easy.

Don’t be a dick, Simin is still ball-gratingly annoying.

I was referring more to his post about not being able to do Lupicus.

Lupicus is easy* there you go.

Wethospu.6437:

If this is again Cliffside equip your team with 10+ Experimental Teleportation Guns (aka portal guns).

Yep, we didn’t know of this bug so didn’t come prepared for that unfortunately We sure wish we had brought some XD

Pretty cosy. Guess the GW2 dungeon bug gods have spoken.

We were stuck in cages that were considered allies and so we could not destroy them and escape to finish the boss (or the instance for that matter). Mesmer was locked in combat and unable to socket a blink/portal.

Might give this a go sometime, thanks :P

Superfrick.1536:

Lorana.2468:

just run path 3 it’s an absolute minimum of 60 tokens per day, more if you get the bags or run it later on with a different character.

path 3 is incredibly easy all you need to know is how to handle lupus.

Sure. And, how do you handle lupus exactly? Because I just spent another 3 hours in Arah and most of it was on Lupus until leader ragequit which reset the dungeon.

We: Stacked for phase 1. Only used ranged. No pets. At all.
Then: We ran like hell during Phase 2, doing damage occasionally until eventually we’d get picked off one by one from dodging out of a cicrle into another one, or not seeing when you’re getting ambushed etc.

Seriously. People. If Arah is SO EASY, why don’t you run me through it? Name the time and I’m there. Name your price. I can stomp ANY other dungeon with NO problem.

Arah is easy.

Essence Snow.3194:

swiftpaw.6397:

I for one, hope that they add more dungeons ( either with new campaigns or during monthly events.) and that they are increased in not only difficulty, but in reward. And I’m sure they will, I only wonder about how they will differ from the dungeons we have now. I am tired of ‘burn down the HP’s of ‘X’ Boss/mob as fast as you can till you get to the next boss/mob.. rinse/repeat.’ HotW is a prime example of that. I would like to see some more Arah-like dungeon mechanics that cater to the hardcore players. The casuals already have tons to choose from.

What if they added one with the increased mechanic difficulty, but without the increased rewards? Would you still want it?

To be honest, yes. I’d still do it, because it’d be a challenge that I could complete and feel good about I guess.

I for one, hope that they add more dungeons ( either with new campaigns or during monthly events.) and that they are increased in not only difficulty, but in reward. And I’m sure they will, I only wonder about how they will differ from the dungeons we have now. I am tired of ‘burn down the HP’s of ‘X’ Boss/mob as fast as you can till you get to the next boss/mob.. rinse/repeat.’ HotW is a prime example of that. I would like to see some more Arah-like dungeon mechanics that cater to the hardcore players. The casuals already have tons to choose from.

Still wouldn’t recommend this class.

Dungeons- Still lacking a unique role. Pets still an issue.

PvP- Hard mode.

Fun class, but glad it isn’t my main. You have to work harder to make this class work than any other class, and even then the results are pretty mediocre.

Make it so I can stow my pet when I want to, that includes*during* combat. If I don’t want it out, I should be able to choose that instead of A-net saying, ‘oh, you took damage? BAM pet come out and pull everything!’

Tinni.4351:

swiftpaw.6397:

Puppy dog eyes, just look at em T_T

Of topic but that is hands down the cutest Charr ever! /I-would-hug-but-I-am-afraid-of-getting-clawed

I would put my claw mittens on so I dun scratch you

Here’s my Charr Guardian, I have multiple heavy armor skin sets but I like this one the most as it’s quite refined looking I guess.

Heinel.6548:

What are you doing in a thread titled “New Guardian – Tips and appearence?” besides showing off the fact that you are not a new guardian?

I mean, besides your first post being woefully off topic, you also think you’re entitled to be responding here, there’s definitely something missing.

Edit: And… I’m being ninja’ed X)

I glanced over and noticed this thread going downhill fast -_-

ANYWAY.

Sorry Mr Kain, we aren’t all like this If you want a build whisper me in game and I’ll help you out depending on what you want to do.

This guy is a new player. So yes, what you’re talking about is irrelevant to him.. this has just turned into ‘look at me and look what I do, and if you cant do its because you aren’t as good as me.’ thread.

If you really cared for helping him, you would at least post the build you use in it’s entirety, or you would post one that would actually be suitable for him.

Puppy dog eyes, just look at em T_T

Urthona.3198:

You’ll be hitting the internal cooldown of EM at about 50-60 crit, depending on weapon choice. With a 0/0/30/30/10 build, 50 is basically the upward limit of what you’re able to achieve anyway. In other words, if you are going to make EM worthwhile with this build, you’re going to need precision on basically everything. Whether you want to pair that with damage (‘Zerkers), toughness (Knight’s), or Healing (AC armor) is up to personal taste.

I also run 0/0/30/30/10, and the set of gear I use most for explorables is indeed precision/vit/HP. I rarely find the lack of toughness a problem, because it’s so easy to come by protection, blocks, and blinds. The hardest-hitting stuff is designed to be dodged anyway, not face-tanked. In high-level FotM, I find it better to switch to Knight’s gear instead, since agony can make higher HP a liability. And there’s always the option to switch out EM for PoV or something and use Cleric’s if the situation calls for it. (Yeah, bag space can be a pain with this build.)

Been wondering about the usefulness of toughness, I prefer vitality also. Atm I run P/T/V with prec access, prec food, prec sigil etc, but I want more prec. Atm build working great for high end fractals but always want to be better, would u mind posting a screenshot of gear/stats?

And yeh I just switch to my zerker set for the agony parts. ( got 30 AR atm)

alcopaul.2156:

swiftpaw.6397:

I still don’t get it….

but i get you. you’re a perfectionist who doesn’t have a personal buffer for error i suppose.

look, when someone fails in a group, personalities of your team mates come out. some will offer you encouragement or check you out, some will just be forgiving and carry on, and some will just diss you out of a sudden.

me having this mindset is opening myself to the scenario that my pugs are not always perfect. that someone dies or fails because of probably unfamiliarity or inexperience or having bad day in game. i try to be forgiving.

again, i don’t purposely drag my team down or be rude or grief. i do my mini tests, IF I FEEL LIKE IT AND DO IT SUBTLELY. if they pass, i play normally and add them in my list. if they fail, i play normally in successive maps and say “ty and hf and gl.” and poof.

You must be telepathic :O

Kain Francois.4328:

Any “icy” armor you guys can recommend? And is Prayer to Dwayna useful enough on a guardian to use human over other races?

Try TA set dyed celestial and a light blue of some sort, saw a guy a while back running that, looked chilly :P

Vanguardian.4921:

I disagree with the above poster. I have seven sets of gear that i rotate between depending on how i’m feeling or what the situation needs, however, I have ran full berserkers with Lyssa runes with extreme success and still had great survivability. In my strong opinion guardians are the only class who can get away with full berserker’s in melee range without hitting the floor every 30 seconds, however, I’ll also say that it is NOT for new guardians. You have to be very experienced with guardian and its strengths to pull it off.

I have multiple sets also, including this one.. And no matter how you look at it, it’s not ideal. It’s great for AC runs and etc, but for doing anything that requires real survivability.. it’s not fun.

I am with you, I would not recommend this as his first set.

I have 1091 hours played on guardian so I guess I count as experienced

I still don’t get it….

NO zerker set! Worst thing you can do on a melee class!

Also, Have you considered Charr Guardian? :O

alcopaul.2156:

so i’ve pugged 99% of my level in FoTM and most of my encounters with them are smooth. smooth as in no one is talking and the flow of the events are like placed like falling dominoes. everything falls together. but i encounter a few bumps while im pugging.

1.) i notice when the group becomes heavy, people start blaming people or people "DC"s.
2.) i notice when i deliberately use wall of reflection when the only target is a melee boss to size up the guardian team mate that i have, he starts to look afk and disconnect from a map.

but there are good parts

1.) some people are patient and encourages the group to do well and try again
2.) if map is impossible, all goes out well and consider it a day.
3.) patient and relaxed people don’t mind the deaths.

i size up my pugs. i try to gauge the vibe. as i said, i use wall of reflection on a melee boss. or not use the skills on harpies that i fall everytime. or use 2 spirit weapons sword and hammer at the same time. i purposely die (but there are unavoidable circumstances when i get ganked or stand on a multiple stacked aoe and appear to my partymates that i get 1 shotted and prolly wearing a mf armor (while i really wear Rurik’s armor))

How about you? How do you deal with your pugs? How was your experience with them?

I don’t understand why you would do this…