Guild Wars 2

Ranger specific:

• Axe skill “Ricochet” bounces of and onto the same enemy 3 times, if no other nearby target is found and bounces back and forth for 3 hits between 2 enemies if no 3rd enemy is found.
• Shortbow: It’s actually viable now.
• One-handed Sword: It freaking works now.
• Swapped Dragonhunter specialization of the Guardian with Ranger’s Druid specialization. Somehow, we’ve interchanged these 2 specializations during developement. We deeply apologize for any inconveniences.

General:

• Dungeon rewards buffed by 1000%. Enemies now have a 50% chance to drop 1-3 tokens upon killing.
• Added distorted Dungeons; New optional hardmode versions of existing dungeons for more reward have been added. Every 24H, each dungeon gets new modification to adapt to, with each enemy and boss gets new powers, resistances and gets sometimes even swapped out or placed differently. Talk to the keeper of each dungeon’s portal entrance to check, which modifications this dungeon has on it and prepare your group accordingly.
• Homing and bouncing projectiles no longer seek another target, if dodged and disappear instead.
• Light armor classes get +25% stamina regeneration increase.
• Heavy armor classes get -25% stamina regeneration decrease.
• Fixed the boring meta, without nerfing berserker or making them not viable anymore by revamping PvE enemy AI, so that enemies are actually fighting back.

I’ve just realized, that my post gets more and more bitter and cynical as i keep writing, so i’ll better stop now.

I haven’t quit my ranger, i have quit GW2 partly because of that.
Heals are the exact opposite of what the ranger community wants for years now.
Another reason i quit, is, because the current state of dungeons, which coincidentally also turned out to head towards the exact opposite of what dungeon runners wanted.

If A-Net wants no one to PvE, why not just remove any PvE content entirely and make GW2 a moba instead.

NovaanVerdiano.6174:

GrimmR.3541:

So many masteries and heropoints to farm… ugh.

So much CoF and so many event trains to run.

I personally stay clear of that vile citadel, as it was the cradle for a spirit, which haunts tyria to this very day.
In it’s fires, deep below, a powerful entity emerged, ferocious by nature it peeked precisely into the souls of anyone, who wandered the citadel, thus corrupting their innocence and robbing them from any emotions.
Those souls now wander restless around Tyria, with nothing but cold calculations and brutal logic as their guides.

True story.

So, i’ve heard A-Net decided to match the dungeon rewards to be more appropriate for your time and effort.

At first, i’ve thought everyone, who pugged Arah now gets a phsychiatrist at the end as a reward to treat their PTSD, alongside 3-10G, depending on the path and make everything in dungeons drop 1-3 tokens.

Well, it seems i was wrong.
At least, someone can make a t-shirt, saying “Arah P4 – 1G”, because it’s one of the funniest lines ever in the history of comedy.

Even fractals seem to be suffering and i wasn’t even a fan of those to begin with. (“Hey look at these things we could’ve made an actual dungeon out of!”)

I’m glad i held off, buying HoT. I never imagined, that it brings any changes or fresh air to dungeons, but who would’ve thought, they’d death sentence them with a mega-nerf.

Thanks.
At least the dungeon discussions deliver constant challenging and diverse content every once in a while.

Was “AFGW2” for a couple of months…What’d i miss? Are dungeons fixed yet?

Hahaha… no seriously, did i missed out on anything cool?

Purple Miku.7032:

Truthbomb! pheeeeeeoooowwwww BOOM

This. This. This. This. This.
Gimme a reason to conquer a dungeon fun&efficiently, without either running past by most “threats” or by just killing a threat before it kills you.

Fractals (And to some degree the aetherpath of TA) where, for me, a promising step in the right direction back when they were introduced – a spark of hope, if you will.
Still, old tactics apply mostly, but in high LV fractals, some groups showed, that you don’t have to be DPS focused as a group to be efficient.

Not to mention, that some fractals require a certain amount of group coordination, where in most dungeons, it’s just berserk left and right for the win, where people could literally ego-trip around and still finish the dungeon as a group.

I still don’t like fractals, tho. It’s like “Hey, look at all these cool mechanics, we could’ve made a whole dungeon out of, if we wanted.”

HoT won’t adress dungeons, sadly. I wanted to come back for it, but now i’ve looked at the druid and nope, not touching that.
Why does the guardian gets everything rangers wanted since day 1? T_T
They have a bloody AoE on their LB AA. I’m so super jealous.

@OP:
PUGs just work like that, especially within a rotting enviroment. They just want to “get over with it as quickly as possible” for the rewards.
And i can’t blame them for that.

Don’t like it? Well, the game’s very title already gives away a solution…

He usually steps slightly backwards before doing his “Lupi KICK”.
“Lupi SMASH” on p2 is a bit more annoying, but after a while, you’ll get a feel for his rotations and can dodge preemptively.
Doesn’t work for me, cuz’ i’m bad, but it might work for you.

Pls fix fixes. /penfifteen

Active defense is an exploit.
This thread is proof of that.

Pls nerf active defense.

(It’s only a matter of time, guys. You know it’s going to happen.)

On a serious note, tho:
I understand the importance of active defense and utility, but pure raw naked (rawr) damage is still way~~~ too useful over everything else currently. (for my taste)

He most likely did mistformed on purpose to troll you.
I mean he can’t possibly aim for being the worst team-player ever, no could he? (or she)

Also, you do have a legendary.
I do not have a legendary.
I want a legendary.
I hate you.
(i actually love you and hate myself, because the little gold i make is instantly spend on shenanigans like mini-worms and toilet flushing.)

The biggest problems, you have to deal with when playing the LB, is;

1. that your DPS is “meh” and even worse, when fighting more than 1 enemy.
2. that some enemy-A.I.‘s behave differently, depending wether one or more players are at a certain range or not, possible causing a wipe all by yourself, because you’ve triggered a powerful attack or messed up the bosses behavior, by fighting ranged.
3. that you can’t get boons from your group/pet, if too far away from them and they can’t get any support from you either. (If you’re using HS)

The whole group decides to go either all ranged or all melee.
Melee is preferred, because most classes have the best DPS on their melee weapons.

Ranged doesn’t really give you much of an advantage, except in very specific scenarios.

But now the core question here: Is it bad to use LB mostly/only in PUGS?
Depends on the PUG, that you’re in. I can’t say, if the randoms, that you’re playing with find that bad.
Some will flame you for that, some won’t even notice, some will just call you a “bearbow” and not bother further.

I personally use LB only for Barrage+RF+PBS, to burn defiance and then i’ll camp S&A for the rest of the fight.
3k+ Autoattacks are a good reason for me not to bother much with everything else.
Rolling a thief would probably have been the better choice, but whatever.

And that’s why i took a break until HoT and see how things play out.
I still hope, that A-Net mixed something up and ranger —→ dragonhunter and guardian --→ druid.

Bored? Check this:
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/No-Trinity-and-Maybe-Trinity

The first sentence is my favourite.

NikeEU.7690:

EcoRI.9273:

His main argument was that berserker is too dominant and too good and that nuking bosses down in under 5seconds is lame. That I agree with.

Again, that is a low level downscaling issue. Even when bosses take 5 minutes to kill berserker is fine. The nuking them down in 5 seconds with berserker is a kittened argument. Soldier’s is 40% worse DPS than Berserker. those 5 second bosses would die in 7 seconds with Soldiers builds. That’s not any more challenging. So clearly it has nothing to do with gear and everything to do with down scaling.

Which means, that with proper downscaling, zerker would even be better then and the differences between zerker and anything else would raise from “abyssmal” to “several lightyears” and people tired of the zerker meta would be even more bored of it.

Simon says “DODGE!”.

Man, crossregion-grouping would be awesome! :D
The ping wouldn’t, though…

@Trice: A couple of encounters aren’t really representative of the dungeons as a whole. Overall, “zerk > everything” by a huge amount.
I managed to kill lupi ranged with 4 (well, 3…one died in phase1 iirc) first-timers in 2 minutes.
That moment, when you meet people, who wanna learn. Too bad, that i’m horrible at teaching, so i just grabbed a smoke and told them to watch a video of ppl fighting lupi.
Worked out just fine – thanks youtube.

Haven’t encountered the forum bug – this is gonna be a good da~~~oh my belly, i’m feeling kinda sick now. :(
Me and my big mouth.

Jerus.4350:

Reminds me of old tower defense games. Sounds fun. Variables that don’t allow complete specialization, balance is required, but the correct balance gets you through the best, or even at all.

Iris Ng.9845:

Jerus’ nostalgia kinda puts a smile on me. Have faith, buddy!

:D

Element TD for WCIII nostalgia!
Thank god for those “maps”, because i really, REALLY suckliduckly at actual WCIII. (and RTS in general)

Kinda reminds of the “Mod System” of Path of Exile.
A neat little online aRPG, somewhat the spiritual successor to Diablo II.

The amount of customization is okay, i guess

And those are just the passives. Some of them do significantly change some active’s, though. They even can drastically change the playstyle.

Active’s also level when using them.

Now here’s the kicker: You can’t meta.
Meta-builds are impossible in this game.

While progressing, you slowly get introduced to the random nature of encounters, by having some enemies or bosses suited up with modifications, which may either end up being good for you, bad for you or just “lolwut”.
Late-game, whole maps get modifications, making things even more messed up.

Oh, you’re doing alot of physical damage, huh? Well here’s a map with a “Enemies reflect 50% physical damage back to player”-mod for you.
Bosses have unique modifications to them regardless of the map’s mod, like " max minion summoning number increased", resulting in hilarious battles, if you’re a minion master (properly skilled and you can have like 100 zombies, which leave a corpse, when dead, which you can target and explode, with chain reaction – PoE’s possibilitie’s are cray-cray) and bosses having increased attackspeed, due to the actual map’s modification.

That kind of thing would be the fluffiest of all kittens in GW2 dungeons, giving LFG’s an actual thought-process.

I may pick PoE up again, when the next big update hits, because i left due to the “desync-problem”. It really made certain skills/builds unusable.
The next udpate promises to fix that, if your ping stays below 150ms. /fingerscrossed

I like Spice&Wolf.
But there never will be a season 3 of it. -_-’
You can actually learn how to play the TP in GW2 by watching that anime.

Gotta look for a new waifu then. Horo’s not coming back.
No waifu, no laifu.

Wolf’s Rain? Man, haven’t watched that one in like 10 years.
"X" used to air on the same channel back then, but man did that one depressed me...I’ve yet to see any kind of story ending darker than that.

Well, i’m not really active at GW2 anymore either. I have the remarkable trait to be inactive on any major event, so i have no living story done or unlocked. (Missed karka-event, never forget T_T. I’ve hear rumors of pre’s dropping like rain)That makes me sad, so i wanna wait ’til season 1 becomes available on top of the general boredom of dungeons. But i can’t complain, i had my fair amount of fun play-time already, it’s just a shame to see all that potential go *poof*, that’s why i still bother and care.
I kinda like the story modes in GW2 - MMORPG with actual spoken dialogue that’s not 26 pages of minifont-lore to read.

~weeeeooooohhhhhh~ BOOM

^That^ was the sound of your truth bomb dropping hard, Sir Jerus.

Also, i’ve seen all those cynical posts everyday. Call me Admiral Obvious, but i think that pretty much shows what kind of stance dungeoneers have towards PvE in it’s current form.

Oh and it also shows what narrowminded nomads think.

#BerserkerIsCheating
#Stackslpoit
#NerfSomeMore

Urgh…

@Trice:
So i can go Beastmaster/Medic on my ranger, because there will be metas ready to carry me?
How kind of them.
Also, i know what active defense means…why do you think i’m using a Salad Dog as my staple pet in dungeons. I can’t blind as ranger and my CC’s are only good for defiance burning, so i try to do what i can.
Still end up being the only one bothering to interrupt a boss chanelling with no defiance, because #puglyfe.

deSade.9437:

J Eberle.9312:

See u just need to farm ap. Then you can roll with the big boys and their sceptre shield AH guardians. Simple really.

:3
Thanks mindbrain!

I have palyed GW2 on/off since august ‘12.
I only have 4k AP (almost).
That means, i never get to play with you, right? :’(

Jerus.4350:

[…]it’s just GW2’s community is full of idiots who want their builds to be the best because they want to be the special snowflake who came up with something beautiful, but it’s as idiotic as blaming successful people for your shortcomings. /snippidysnap

See, i’m “anti-meta”. I’m not against an “optimal way of doing things”.
All i want is diversity and more options in my builds.
I couldn’t care less, if something’s a bit more “optimal” in terms of efficiency and/or difficulty, if the difference in GW2 wouldn’t be as abysmal as zerker vs anything else.

I’m a zerker. (holy trinity FTW)
Why am i zerker but anti-meta? Well, give me one good reason not to zerk in the current PvE. It’s just superior in every. single. aspect.
People like to say that zerkers are more squishy in return, i say, i have no problems with that (in PvE), even though i’m really not a skilled player at all. (example: When i’m doing TA, i always make sure to smell on every flower in there. )

How to change that? (Not the flower suicides, the lack of diversity, i mean)
Hell if i know…start with enemy encounters and overhaul mobs, i guess.
Will never happen, tho.

On a sidenote about being “squishy”: Why are there different armor classes if everyone has access to heals and the same amount of dodges? While it really doesn’t makes any difference in PvE, i find that kinda unbalanced and pointless for PvP modes…but meh, whatever.

Jerus.4350:

And, yeah Nevets, I have like 8 chars at <10%, a few of them are at like 25-50% thanks to my boredom and wanting to level things “the old fashion way.” and 1 at 100%.

Being fast = Exploiting.
Haven’t you heard the news?

Axelwarrior.9084:

Guys, please don’t argue, especially for matters irrelevant to the thread.

It does matter in the end.
Lines must be drawn to judge what’s “bad design”, what’s an “exploit” and what is “working as intended”.

Here’s the problem, though: As far as dungeons go, it’s pretty much anarchy right now in that regard, because anet doesn’t (seem to) give clear answers anymore, so everyone comes up with their own rules and different interpretations of the word “exploit”.

For example, i draw the line, when something’s clearly glitching, like noclips and the use of third-party-tools (technically, memory hacks) to get access to informations, someone normally wouldn’t have, like exact DPS and enemies current HP/max HP.

Only once, we’ve gotten that issue out of the way, you can get a clear answer to your initial question.
I have the feeling, that this won’t be straightened out anytime soon, though.

Oh man, the irony.
I’m smiling IRL right now.

Well, rambling nonsene on the dungeon forum is more rewarding than actually playing GW2 dungeons.

ZING!

I still find myself trying to climb that coral-thing at the ancient ooze in arah out of habit.

Instantly getting punished for doing so, by being teleported right in front of a turret.
I’ll never learn…

“Walls” are the dungeoneers best friend, huh?

I can imagine getting a perfect rotation done with linecasting feels rewarding, especially if you’re going for speedclear records.

Dungeons seriously lack in “feeling rewarding”, once you’ve done ‘em once or twice, so i can’t blame anyone from resorting to such tactics.

Now, i can’t stop thinking about that Super Smash Bros Melee dash-thingy, i never bothered to learn.

dlonie.6547:

Can anyone track down the video of the 2 minute Arah p2 from back when the Brie invlunsploit was possible and they just split up and solo’d each boss? I’m having trouble finding it…

Edit: I found one perspective, ele @Abom: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=swCpjui9J0s

Is it related to this?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e1eLF5AU4sE

Edit: Oh you’ve ninja’d edited.
You’re a sneaky one.

Hmm…i was thinking about making a charr.
Imma name him “Butterscotch”.

I bet 5 bucks, that it’s already a taken name.

Let’s agree on “projectiles in general are badly designed”.

#bringbackourabsorbingwardens

I was a soldier peasant when i started.

Peasant sounds good. I put myself in the "Ranger Peasant" category now.

On a sidenote: My staple pet since day 1 is still the Fern Hound. Can’t get rid of it and no PUG ever has questioned it so that’s good. Once it’s meta, i can start being a hipster. *puts glasses and fedora into shopping cart*

deSade.9437:

Ahhhhh, look who’s back, guys.

Grabbing a plate or bowl in Skyrim, giving the ability to run through any kind of wall or door is excellent game design imo.

Game design so excellent, that imma take advantage of that.
Take that, locked door!

Of course i disapprove of that.
I also approve of that, because locust can su—-my—-ha—-a—-(technical problem, please stand by)

Sorry.

Seriously, tho, glitching half a boss into a wall is not just “bad design”.

Well, i can’t be PHIW and i can’t be an elitist and i’ve played too much Dark Souls to be considered a kazul.
What else could i be?

Forever alone?

Because you have push/noclip half his body into a wall to be able to place WoF above lupis head.

Don’t be such a player hater.
Hate the game, not me.

Also, i find the term “kazul” derogatory, i prefer “hipster” now.
Thank you.

They should add cat golem minis to chests at the end of fractals.

Meow.

deSade.9437:

Why would you want to play with filthy elitists <.<

Zerk elitist jerks still get the job done faster.
Gonna grab that cash fast, bro.

Zerk & 6 wipes < Nomads & no wipe.

There once was a bug.
Then he got squished.
The end.

dlonie.6547:

But then that last paragraph…. :-P

I’m still thinking, that a good game should come with rules.

dlonie.6547:

But it’s cool. What matters is that you’re a filthy elitist jerk now.

And it hurts so right.

Man, i wanna do dungeons with you forum guys someday. The only one I’ve done a path with until now is frifox and it was an arah PUG.
Haven’t realized it, until we killed stargazer – even learned something new that day.

I’ve actually seen goemancy runes relatively often in my few fractal runs. (I’m only lv 20 or so…)

Of course we roll jademaw, if that happens.
I mean this battle is meant for followers to shine.

I wonder, if there’s a dungeon guild out there, commited to troll PUGs.

@dlonie: Thanks for the find.
Well, it wasn’t the post i was looking for.
It’s worse.

Why did i start to dig in the past…it never ends well.

dlonie.6547:

Man, I forgot that krall was whiteknighting like a mofo back then, too.

Oh boy, you should’ve seen me back in the days.
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/LFM-Berzerker-Wars-ONLY/first

ctrl+f: “wauwi”

It actually is my third most rated post to this day.
Not really proud of that, i can tell you that for a fact.

You may now laugh.

OMG yes!

Isn’t there a fedora skin in the gem-store somewhere? Glasses sure are.
Maybe i just go for a melon-hat.

Or wait not, it was all just a philosopical, hypothetical question…i’m not actually using soldier’s or anything in PvE…

Well, so far, i’ve found a forum called “elitistjerks.com” involving a fellow gw2 forumite…you won’t believe it – tentonhammer.

This night just got real.

Edit:
http://www.guildwarsinsider.com/guild-wars-insider-interviews-dungeon-designer-robert-hrouda/

(source: http://www.guildwars2guru.com/topic/81157-interview-with-gw2-dungeon-designer-robert-hrouda-by-guild-wars-insider/)

Great, site’s down – that might have been the one i was looking for.
But some of the forum users in the 2nd link have quoted some nice things, gold in their own rights.

Mr. Hrouda cared.

Now i’m depressed. -_-’

Edit 2: Still haven’t found it and imma stop looking for now, because i gradually get more salty with each old blogpost, i’m reading.
Like this one:
https://www.guildwars2.com/en/news/robert-hrouda-on-upcoming-changes-to-dungeon-mechanics/

Well, my wild claims, that A-Net intended specific build/profession composition to run a dungeon/path the optimal way (which are supposed to differ from dungeon to dungeon and path to path) doesn’t sound so far off anymore, huh?

That’s why i’m looking for that post right now.
At least something to do to pass the time.

I shall focus the power of google within the palms of my hands now…might not returning alive.

Windsagio.1340:

honestly, I think you’re misremembering.

I assure you, that i’m remembering it correctly.
I even remember ranger pets used to be manually revivable. (they actually died)
2012 isn’t that long ago.

Jerus.4350:

You’re a quitter, half way to optimization but unwilling to go all the way

But i’ve never joined anything to quit in the first place.
Mind.
Blown.

I know now – I’m an Independant video gamer player, an “IVGP”, as they call it.
Respect my independency, y’all.