Guild Wars 2 - my colon was impacted because we were raiding for so long

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felch me daddy jr.: Oct 30, 2009

Been glued to my computer ever since HoT launched, have to say I'm pretty happy with it. Spent the first few days getting to fractal level 100 (and maxing that mastery), and while complaints about boss HP are absolutely warranted (the first champ you fight on level 100 is a perfect example), I feel that they managed to mix things up enough with the instabilities to make it interesting and challenging.

Also did some pretty princessing, of course. First I updated the look of my ~~Mesmer~~ Chronomancer:

Then I made a new Engineer, and decided to go for some kind of post-apocalyptic gunslinger look which I'm pretty happy with:

And of course, I needed a ~~Revenant~~ Herald:

# ¿ Nov 2, 2015 18:41

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# ¿ May 9, 2024 22:23

felch me daddy jr.: Oct 30, 2009

malhavok posted:

Those all look awesome, specially the chronomancer. What shield is that?

Thanks! It's the new Gold Fractal shield, which I was lucky enough to get as a drop from a daily chest.

# ¿ Nov 2, 2015 19:29

felch me daddy jr.: Oct 30, 2009

SlothBear posted:

Shockingly, fractals have been a major let down. Again.

From what I've read Mai Trin at 100 doesn't hit anywhere near as hard as Mai Trin at 50 used to, but has way more hp. I've done fractals up to the 60s now and they've all been snoozefests compared to what 50 used to be. This is just the Fracataled updated making us grind out the same ranks again disguised a new way if we want to max out. But considering the rewards are so bad there's even less motivation to. The golden skins look worse than the regular ones imo. If you want a particular fractal skin you can just like do the 1-20 achieve anyway. Oh and fractal skins don't show up in the collection of course. And these rewards that were supposed to be moved from dungeons to fractals apparently got lost somewhere in between.

I don't really get why they couldn't have just used whatever they are making as raids and made them as new fractals instead, it would have kept it all together and the lesser group requirement would make it more accessible, but then again most of the decisions in HoT don't make much sense to me.

Hey maybe you should try actually running high level fractals before dismissing them. Some of the instabilities force you to adapt to them in new ways, and I certainly found many of the 71+ ones to be far more challenging than the old 50. I agree with every criticism about too much HP, but overall I think the overhaul (including the splitting up of fractals, the dailies and all) has really improved fractals.

# ¿ Nov 2, 2015 23:30

felch me daddy jr.: Oct 30, 2009

Alteisen posted:

Its like they took a game that was very casual friendly and decided to cater exclusive to the 1% spergs, I mean I read some complaints about some ascended poo poo that required you to salvage other ascended armor, I mean what the gently caress? Maybe you where one of the lucky few that got some randomly from a world boss but otherwise?

Just to clear this up, the "ascended poo poo" in question is a precursor for the legendary backpiece. Considering that you need to salvage each step of the pre to get to the next step, and that gives you 5 of the balls of dark energy that you need, the amount of ascended items you need to salvage isn't that much. I read a thread on Reddit with people complaining about this, and their complaints basically boil down to "I am furious that this exclusive and ultimately unnecessary piece of legendary equipment is not attainable by casual players unable or unwilling to spend any gold". Also, the legendary in question is very fractal-themed, and people who regularly did high-level fractals before HoT generally have a bank tab full of boxes of ascended armor and weapons.

# ¿ Nov 13, 2015 14:06

felch me daddy jr.: Oct 30, 2009

orcane posted:

You must be unfamiliar with the concept of RNG.

Considering both ascended weapon boxes and armor boxes had around a 10% drop rate from level 50 fractals pre-HoT, I don't think it's unreasonable to expect that people who regularly did that for any length of time will have gotten some. I know I had around 20 boxes before they introduced the stat conversion thing at least, just from doing 50 on a daily basis for a few months.

# ¿ Nov 13, 2015 16:09

felch me daddy jr.: Oct 30, 2009

ItBurns posted:

Preemptively complaining that you hate new content on a purely theoretical basis.

Just the thought of casual goons spending the next 3-4 weeks all up in arms about how prohibitively difficult raids are and how expensive legendary armor will be makes me all giddy.

# ¿ Nov 16, 2015 23:08

felch me daddy jr.: Oct 30, 2009

ItBurns posted:

Has anyone here made the ascended Viper's (Yassith's) armor? Where did you get the let line sparks from, just from the Crystallized Caches? Also lol 1000+ gold.

Exotic Viper doesn't seem worth it compared to ascended sinister.

Uh, why would you ever do that? Just craft another statset and buy/craft inscriptions to convert. Got me a whole set of ascended Viper's gear for my engi that way.

# ¿ Nov 19, 2015 20:08

felch me daddy jr.: Oct 30, 2009

LITERALLY A BIRD posted:

If it makes you feel better DnT still has dagger/dagger as meta over staff. From what I've gathered staff's Weakening Charge is competitive with d/d if you land all three hits on the mob you're fighting and is a DPS loss if you don't.

e: also if you want to talk about pve thief problems let's highlight the fact that the entire daredevil gimmick is dodging and like 90% of the above-50 fractals punish you for that

40%.

# ¿ Nov 22, 2015 18:27

felch me daddy jr.: Oct 30, 2009

Mercurius posted:

In addition to those you listed, PS warrior still works fine without Berserker and the old Guardian dungeon builds are also pretty good. Condi Hybrid Engineer in particular doesn't usually use Scrapper (although we were using it in the raids since function gyro was nice for ressing people in electrified floor).

While both PS warr and guard work without specializations, they bring a lot to the table. Looking at Arms, for example, while it seemed like a pretty solid trait line pre-HoT, it's completely outclassed by the insane damage boosts from Berserker, not to mention it makes the class a lot more fun to play. I even got myself some viper gear (and now I'm broke) for my warr mostly for Gorseval, and holy poo poo is that a fun spec to use compared to old condi specs. With a little alacrity and a touch of quickness you can get 5-6 primal bursts from longbow in in a single berserk mode.

# ¿ Nov 27, 2015 03:41

felch me daddy jr.: Oct 30, 2009

If you want to do world completion without a mesmer or masteries, you can always use the Teleport to Friend item on someone who's at the HP/whatever you need. Even map completion is P2W now. :smug:

# ¿ Dec 30, 2015 22:47

felch me daddy jr.: Oct 30, 2009

CLAM DOWN posted:

Dragons stand is a stupid excessive time investment for a casual player so yeah no one should waste their time on it, and the mastery grind is stupid excessive time investment required as well.

I guess I'm just a silly nolife poopsocker with no perspective, but I was under the impression that even some casual players sometimes played for as much as 90 minutes in one sitting. I mean I think everyone who follows the thread gets that Anet killed the game for you because you're a ~~casual~~ but I don't think there's a need to tell people who want to check out new content that most people enjoy at least the first time to not bother just because you're jaded and disappointed.

# ¿ Jan 22, 2016 23:34

felch me daddy jr.: Oct 30, 2009

ApeHawk posted:

"Revenant was doing too much damage with just sword autos"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eA126dULIr0

The difference is that thief isn't simultaneously giving permafury and boon duration buffs to the entire party. Thief is completely useless at everything except doing damage, let's not take that away from them too.

# ¿ Jan 27, 2016 18:20

felch me daddy jr.: Oct 30, 2009

Kessel posted:

i particularly like that you can put a turret/pet/summon down inside the rear end of Old Tom and tank the entire bossfight without moving or lifting a finger

Even before the change using earth ele to block his shots was the normal way to do him.

# ¿ Jan 30, 2016 15:47

felch me daddy jr.: Oct 30, 2009

Illuyankas posted:

Six pieces from the same set? Gross

Pretty sure the helmet is T3, so only 5.

# ¿ Feb 12, 2016 15:50

felch me daddy jr.: Oct 30, 2009

Everyone here seems to just accept it as hard fact that raids are something the vast majority of players aren't even interested in, even quoting numbers like 5%, is this based on any real statistics or just "well most goons don't raid, so that must be true for the entire player base"?

# ¿ Feb 17, 2016 17:45

felch me daddy jr.: Oct 30, 2009

Pretty sure the numbers still say staff is slightly better than dagger/warhorn on Sabetha (and Burning Retreat is great if you're on a cannon), and even though it's not optimal on VG it has the advantage that you can go in green circles while still doing DPS.

# ¿ Mar 12, 2016 18:26

felch me daddy jr.: Oct 30, 2009

knowonecanknow posted:

It seemed like if I was to make it to my circles I have to switch to lightning and swiftness over to them or I'd miss. That puts a hamper on the DPS of fire/staff. Any pointers on getting to circles quicker?

Best thing you can do is always being ready to run for a circle, you shouldn't need swiftness most of the time. Remember that you don't have to stand right next to the boss, a distance of around 3-600 units still gives you most buffs while making sure you're closer to the circle when it spawns. Other than that, learning to use your Burning Retreat for mobility is a good skill to have, and if you're really struggling Lightning Flash will save your rear end a bunch.

# ¿ Mar 12, 2016 20:02

felch me daddy jr.: Oct 30, 2009

You didn't mention the Chronomancer, which while not strictly necessary (like any other class) is a great addition. In addition to the invaluable quickness and alacrity, it also has the ability to tank and is arguably the best class for boon stripping since it's on the sword auto attack.

felch me daddy jr. fucked around with this message at 11:10 on Mar 14, 2016

# ¿ Mar 14, 2016 10:52

felch me daddy jr.: Oct 30, 2009

Dreggon posted:

i am still utterly baffled as to why my necro damage seems so much lower than everyone elses

my gear is all viper, zerker runes, malice/earth sigils, scepter/dagger. my bleeds are around... 6k? i run lich horrors and the corruption stuff and i am trying to not cancel my autos, but not much seems to change, and i can't keep my horrors alive

Keeping minions alive depends a great deal on the fight and your group setup. In some fights like Gorseval I find that it's pretty hard to keep up a high number of bleeds, at least unless the group has more healing than usual, whereas in a fight like Sabetha it's almost hard to get them killed. For Sloth and Matthias you'll lose all your minions if you transform/get sacrificed, but the DPS loss from that is generally balanced out with the great utility you can bring. But yeah, if you don't have enough healing to keep the minions alive for certain fights you'll never see the 15k bleed ticks, but if you're bouncing epidemics with another necro the DPS contribution is still pretty good.

# ¿ Apr 2, 2016 15:25

felch me daddy jr.: Oct 30, 2009

Visidan posted:

PSA for the cheap fuckers who have 1 weapon in each swap https://www.reddit.com/r/Guildwars2/comments/4m4h8p/psa_dont_equip_2_onehanded_weapons_in_different/

You are literally losing money the longer you ignore this article

Someone made a thread about this a few weeks ago as well, and someone pointed out that it's not really a big deal. As Reaper you hardly spend any time in shroud at all, and even if you do the shroud-5-4-leave thing (which in some cases you might not even do considering shroud is great for cc and emergencies so you might want to make sure it's not on cd) the slightly lower condition damage and duration of those bleeds are not a huge deal. As Druid, i don't think most builds use only one mainhand and one offhand, and even if they did they'd probably be full viper/zerk and it wouldn't affect the healing from celestial avatar at all. Even in the case of some zealot sword setup the small amount of healing power lost should not have a noticeable impact.

felch me daddy jr. fucked around with this message at 10:29 on Jun 2, 2016

# ¿ Jun 2, 2016 10:27

felch me daddy jr.: Oct 30, 2009

Doc is that obnoxious vet who beats his wife right? Or am I mixing up my awful Twitch personalities?

# ¿ Jun 13, 2016 11:57

felch me daddy jr.: Oct 30, 2009

While there might be a tiny bit of inconsistency with ripping the stacks off Keep Construct, in my experience most people who whine about it being bugged are just not killing them closely enough. You need to kill them more or less inside its hitbox to be sure. Also, for the fat ghosts during the football phase, just focus them down as soon as they spawn so you don't have to worry about mergers. Have one person assigned to move the core, a few more to CC the goalkeepers and the rest kill the ghosts. My guild killed it last night, but couldn't get past the labyrinth event after it. Imagine Sabrina's gym from Pok�mon on nightmare mode, it's awful. Also you really want everyone to have the new mastery for that part.

The first event was OK, but I feel kind of ripped off that we're getting another raid wing with only two bosses.

felch me daddy jr. fucked around with this message at 12:18 on Jun 16, 2016

# ¿ Jun 16, 2016 12:14

felch me daddy jr.: Oct 30, 2009

Dreggon posted:

what does the new mastery help with in that part?

It enables you to use the fountains to reduce your madness stacks. It's not essential, but it gives you a lot more leeway in terms of time.

# ¿ Jun 16, 2016 15:59

felch me daddy jr.: Oct 30, 2009

Tsurupettan posted:

What makes them relegated to alts for instances? I love how varied their kit is.

In terms of open world PvE specifically, you have to pay a bit more attention when playing elementalist compared to something like ranger or warrior, primarily because they're a bit squishy, and so it's not the best class if you want no-effort mindless farming. That being said though, ele is one of the best classes in all modes of the game and fun to play to boot, so I don't think you can go wrong by boosting one to 80. In fact, getting used to play on a squishier class will prevent you from forming bad habits like not dodging because you know you can take the hit.

# ¿ Jun 17, 2016 02:04

felch me daddy jr.: Oct 30, 2009

I don't get the outrage about LI requirements for legendary armor. You know that raids have been out for a long, long time right? And that they explicitly stated that you'd need Legendary Insights to make the armor? The legendary armor is meant for people who raid, just like the fractal/PvP backpacks and WvW armor sets require you to play a certain game mode to get. You can call it a 4 month timegate if you want, but nothing stopped anyone from saving up the ingredients everyone knew would be necessary since what, November? Honestly the ingredients seem mostly reasonable to me, although 600 of each T6 certainly stings.

# ¿ Jun 22, 2016 01:52

felch me daddy jr.: Oct 30, 2009

Sure sure, it's a 4-month timegate starting now, because we suddenly have information that makes all goons want to craft legendary armor. If you had started getting into raids earlier and gotten into a decent group you could do full clears in 90 minutes every week, and slowly but surely saved up the insights that we knew were going to be needed. I guess it's easier to just decry raids as some grognard tryhard game mode that is bad anyway, and then act all outraged when they decide to give rewards for doing them. Even if you started today and full cleared every week you'd probably get to 150 before the armor is actually available knowing Anet's release history.

# ¿ Jun 22, 2016 20:59

felch me daddy jr.: Oct 30, 2009

Generic Octopus posted:

Dude do you seriously not see anything wrong with someone coming into a game and being like, "o cool armor, how do I get it?" and the response being "well first find a consistent group of 9 other people and then religiously clear every raid every week for 4 months."

If you took a person completely new to the game and explained everything that's needed to make legendary weapons, or just a full set of ascended gear, that would probably seem pretty overwhelming too. Also when I start a new MMO I don't expect to be able to get everything I want in a few weeks but maybe I'm just masochistic for thinking it's OK to have long-term goals that aren't for everyone.

I know that most goons are on the casual end of the MMO player spectrum but raids aren't this insurmountable task. You don't even need a consistent group, after my last guild imploded I spent a month doing weekly pug raids, and I always had all my bosses done by Tuesday night (some of the groups didn't even have the easily-faked LI requirement).

Seeing how the skins aren't even out yet (and if the precursors are any kind of indicator will be lame anyway), is the outrage just over how it's the only legendary armor in the game? Because I can't imagine that not being able to switch stats on your armor on the fly while not switching runes is really that detrimental to your game experience.

# ¿ Jun 22, 2016 22:48

felch me daddy jr.: Oct 30, 2009

AnacondaHL posted:

Based on the release schedule, 150 Legendary Insights was only obtainable this week (3 per week since November for 16 weeks, 6 per week since March for 14 weeks, 9 per week since June for 2 weeks). So if you actually started from the beginning and was in one of the best guilds in the world this was still a nine month timegate.

If you started today there is little chance that you actually full clear every week. Say we start with your suggestion of 90 minutes per clear, or lets say 150 minutes for all 3 wings any week, and that is all you want to raid any given week. And you have found a group of 9 like-minded people in the same situation. Well unfortunately it takes about 5 hours to get comfortable enough with any given boss fight to get to that point, and this is a very generous estimate. So the ramp up time is 1 new boss downed each 2 weeks, starting with 0. In the first 18 weeks you'd have 81 Insights, and be done in 26 weeks (6 months), spending 3900 game minutes (65 hours).

Raids are rewarding enough as is, but the 150 requirement shows a gross miscalculation of time and effort that players actually need to get there by ANet and players like you who have no idea.

Thanks for a decent response.

First of all, clearing all bosses every week does not mean you're in one of the best guilds in the world, there was a goon who admitted to having enough LIs already earlier in the thread. I'd have enough too if I didn't take a few breaks from the game (at 114 currently), and I've been either in no guild or in noname guilds. Second, you all know that the armor isn't out yet and probably won't be for a while? You don't need 150 today, but if you did some raiding before this week then that helps you shorten the 4 month timegate. Third, 90 minutes was meant for all three wings, not one, although that's obviously after you get comfortable with the raid.

And fair enough, you might not get your kills instantly, but you also don't need to go in blind with 9 other complete beginners. There are guilds and groups devoted to teaching raids, and once you start getting the hang of raiding in general it'll be easier to pick up on the next bosses. I think 5 hours is a decent estimate if your entire group is new to raiding and most of them haven't even read any type of guide, but with the current plethora of resources and information, as well as many skills being directly transferable to other encounters, I think for most groups it's far too pessimistic. My guild sometimes takes people who haven't done a boss if we need a 10th, give them a good explanation in advance and then kill it within a few tries no problem, those people then have a pretty good understanding of the boss and can go on to either join pugs or do it with other friends.

You're of course free to think that it's a gross miscalculation, but the same has been said of literally any high-prestige item in the game. Remember the uproar about needing to salvage ascended gear to get the fractal backpack? Turns out, Anet intended for legendary items to require a certain amount of dedication to get, and despite a bunch of people getting upset because they're not willing to do that but still desperately want the item, I doubt they'll budge on this one.

Finally, like someone mentioned earlier, you can work on one piece at a time, so even if it'll take you many months to get the full set, you'll still get there piece by piece, 25 LIs at a time.

felch me daddy jr. fucked around with this message at 23:40 on Jun 22, 2016

# ¿ Jun 22, 2016 23:30

felch me daddy jr.: Oct 30, 2009

Wait did someone actually complain that they couldn't get the raid masteries which are only useful for raids without doing raids? :psyduck:

# ¿ Jun 24, 2016 12:44

felch me daddy jr.: Oct 30, 2009

Visidan posted:

No.

Oh ok my bad.

Thunderbro posted:

Yes, this is a huge problem. Dragon Stand is such an innovative and cool concept that is essentially a 2-hour raid yet they decided to lock multiple things behind true sperg gates. I have much more important things to do in life than carefully cultivate a video game team to play a video game part time job. You can't finish your Masteries, you can't get legendary armor, you can't get ascended gear for some of the best stat combinations without raiding. They need to fire whatever Wildstar retards are trying to tank GW2 with such nonsense.

CLAM DOWN posted:

See yeah, I'm never going to complete masteries, legendary armour, viper's ascended, etc. And it's not because I'm not capable skillwise or anything? It's because I'm arbitrarily locked out of an entire part of the game because I cannot schedule my time around it. It's a load of poo poo.

# ¿ Jun 24, 2016 14:10

felch me daddy jr.: Oct 30, 2009

CLAM DOWN posted:

You're legit retarded. I mean, this is just like WoW way back when, "those casuals don't need epic purpz, they won't use them, it's only for raids!".

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Heart_of_Maguuma_mastery_tracks#Forsaken_Thicket

I'm well aware that you take it as a personal affront to you that there exists content and rewards in this game which you LITERALLY CAN'T ACCESS, but you'll have to explain to me exactly what use you were hoping to get out of the Forsaken Thicket mastery track. It's like saying "I have no interest in doing fractals, so how the gently caress am I supposed to get 150 AR?".

# ¿ Jun 24, 2016 20:58

felch me daddy jr.: Oct 30, 2009

Generic Octopus posted:

Well you need Rift Traveler to get to the merchant to get the other poo poo. The problem Arus and other people with lives is, they just aren't committed enough to gw2 to gain the exp to fill out all their masteries. Which is fine, those filthy casuals don't deserve them.

If you don't raid, then the raid merchant won't have anything for you to buy. I was simply trying to point out that "I can't get masteries without doing raids" is a moronic argument but I guess we can just keep pretending two people didn't just say that. As for other masteries, nothing is stopping you from working on them slowly but surely on whatever "20 minutes every second Wednesday"-type schedule you're comfortable with so that's not really relevant to the discussion about raids.

Also FWIW I don't consider myself hardcore and I don't hate casuals. I'm just annoyed by the attitude that everything in GW2 needs to be tuned to the exact same audience (aka Arus), and if something isn't then they shouldn't dare to attach any kind of rewards to it. There are lots of parts of this game that don't interest me, like PvP, WvW, living story, SAB, most world bosses, and even dungeons lately, but when they release a legendary backpack for PvP players or unique Tequatl skins I don't throw a shitfit about needing to do something I don't want to in order to get the rewards; usually I just tell myself "oh well, I don't need that legendary backpack anyway, and I'm sure people who enjoy PvP enjoy the journey of making one". Like I'd understand if legendary armor actually gave you higher stats or had some other unfair advantage, but it's literally just paying a premium for the convenience of having several stats in one set (that will never be less expensive than just making all those sets separately), as well as whatever obnoxious particle effects they add to the same old buttcapes and boobplates.

Oh and I tried giving some tips on raiding without a set dedicated group earlier but if you're convinced that raiding needs to be treated like a full time job to have any success then I doubt I'll convince you otherwise.

# ¿ Jun 25, 2016 02:30

felch me daddy jr.: Oct 30, 2009

I think we have both displayed about equal willingness to engage in mature discussion here, but I hardly think it's unfair to let literal years of whining about how Anet is catering to hardcore nolifers and ruining everything for Us Honest Casuals influence my impression of you.

# ¿ Jun 25, 2016 02:52

felch me daddy jr.: Oct 30, 2009

Eh, agree to disagree I guess. Sorry for making GBS threads up the thread.

# ¿ Jun 25, 2016 03:10

felch me daddy jr.: Oct 30, 2009

Alteisen posted:

Haha it looks even worse now.

Asura masturbator spotted. (It really doesn't.)

# ¿ Jun 28, 2016 23:00

felch me daddy jr.: Oct 30, 2009

Ineptitude posted:

Thank you to the multiple people for responding regarding class choice! (not gonna quote all that)
You made several classes sound more interesting than i gave them credit for at a glance and explained the playstyles in more detail.

I opted to continue on my ranger with the aim of playing a supporty druid, with a build suited for small groups and PVE map zergs/events.
After grinding to 80 in a couple of hours (a couple of xp boosts + fully bonused enemies makes for incredibly fast leveling!) and spending a couple of days getting "aquainted with" (my rear end handed to me repeatedly) HoT zones and mechanics i had the 250 hero points required to 100% unlock druid.
I am a bit underwhelmed. None of the staff skills seems to pack a very large punch, and the actual healing that everyone has been talking so warmly about is hidden behind a long "cooldown" with an incredibly short duration. (i haven't even had the time to read the description of the last 2 skills yet) And to add even more insult to injury the healing skills behind the cooldown doesn't even seem to heal myself (?!) I honestly was expecting something else when reading the explanations about the druid, but perhaps i was expecting too much. Or at the very least it seems my expectations aren't in line with how this game works at a base level.

When i think of support classes or buffers or healers i think of someone that does that job nearly all - to all the time. Buffs should be permanently up, heals should be spammable. If the druid heals were the baseline staff skills and the cooldown opened up all the dps skill that would be more aligned with what i was expecting (hoping) At the very least buffs should have permanent uptime. Right now it seems they are up 20-30% of the time.

Maybe the game itself isn't for me. I really do not like the weapon swapping mechanic, i find how every single skill is essentially a short duration cooldown type skill frustrating and the thought of trying to decipher what a "build" does to see if it suits my playstyle makes me not want to log on. There are so many terms and mechanics and interactions my thoughts trail off before i am even halfway in trying to understand a build because i find these ways of character customization so boring. (If you have skill A and skill B then skill C will have increased duration if it is winter solstice and you are wearing a tophat)
I do enjoy lots of the features of the game though. The map objective way of "questing" is great, the art style really works, the lore is interesting. The personal story mechanics are great. The first few weeks of gameplay were lots of fun, some of the most fun i have had gaming in a long while. That is why i don't just find a different game to play. I really think i can enjoy this game if i could only get comfortable with a class/build/playstyle but i am not the kind of person to find it interesting to try and make these builds myself.

TLDR; I would really appreciate some (further) help with a druid build well suited for map exploration, soloing tougher enemies, small pve groups and map meta events/zergs

First of all, you should think of all classes as primarily DPS with potential support on the side. While it's possible to get insane amounts of healing out of a Druid with full Healing Power gear, that kind of play style is not recommended anywhere outside of raids, and usually not even there. For open world PvE, you'd probably want to go with something other than staff as a main weapon, like sword/axe, greatsword or longbow depending on preference (or axe/torch if you're going for condition damage), staff is more a weapon you can swap to for the mobility of the 3 skill or the projectile defense of the 5, since it does hit like a wet noodle. As for buffs, Druid brings Grace of the Land which you should always have a couple of stacks of if you go into Celestial Form on cooldown and pop a few heals (the number 4 skill is the best one for pure healing), as well as that one Glyph that buffs damage and fury from your Tiger/Moa and potentially warhorn.

What kind of gear are you using? If your gear has mostly defensive stats trying to solo anything is going to be a tedious experience regardless of build, class and weapons. Generally a full set of Berserker's gear is recommended, although if you want more survivability you can mix some Knight's or Marauder's stats in there.

Also you shouldn't be too worried about builds at this point; the builds you'll find on Metabattle and such are super optimized builds for tryhards, if you're just doing open world stuff then you don't have to worry too much about rotations or specific traits. That being said though, if you really don't like the playstyle maybe you should try out other classes to see if any of them feel better to you?

# ¿ Jul 4, 2016 19:18

felch me daddy jr.: Oct 30, 2009

Baron Von Pigeon posted:

Who the hell was at the old limit of shared inventory slots and didn't already have unlimited tools in there?

Seriously 10 slots is over $80, and if you're willing to spend that much money on inventory slots you probably have at least one full set of infinite gathering tools and I can't think of 10 other items that have a higher priority for being shared

Also holy poo poo infinite use plain harvesting tools has to be the simplest money printing scheme they've ever had, they don't even need to make new animations! and the punchline to that joke is that people requested that??

I'm on 10 slots and never even considered using them for the tools. Not everyone runs around harvesting that much on that many different characters, and even if you do having to constantly equip/unequip them like that seems like more hassle than it's worth. I use mine for 4x salvage kits (copper/mystic/BL/ascended), LI and tonic for when i have to pug raids, Black Lion Express, fractal keys, Star of Gratitude and Airship Pass, and if I had more slots I'd use them on the HoT map keys, Bank/Vendor expresses, Executioner's Axe, the home instance express or even certain food/potions that I use on several characters.

# ¿ Jul 13, 2016 12:34

felch me daddy jr.: Oct 30, 2009

Sjonkel posted:

I usually play support roles, and enjoy those the most. Which professions are especially good at a support role? Doesn't have to be any of the three I've tried so far.

It depends a bit on what kind of support role you're thinking about. For most of GW2 PvE, there's no such thing as a pure support class, and you'll need to focus on DPS to a certain degree regardless. That said, Ranger and Mesmer are probably the most support-y classes with their HoT specializations, Druid and Chronomancer. Druid is the closest you can get to a healer, although focusing on healing is pretty useless outside of raids. That said, Druid also brings a lot of DPS boosts for the entire party and regardless of build and gear you will be able to pump out some heals when needed. Chronomancer is one of the trickiest classes to play, and they by far have the lowest DPS in the game so they need to compensate with support, aka pumping out quickness and alacrity (quickness makes all skills go quicker and alacrity reduces recharge on all skills) for the party, as well as having access to projectile reflection, CC, stability and condition removal if needed. Most classes are capable of bringing some kind of support though, it's just that in many cases the optimal way to build them for harder content is full DPS, but if you're mostly doing open world stuff you should experiment with whatever class, build and play style you enjoy.

quote:

Is it worth gathering everything I see at my level? Copper ore, onions etc? Since there doesn't seem to be any skill increases or anything, I'm thinking i might be wasting my time.

I'd say yes. If you ever decide that you want to level crafting professions (probably after hitting max level), you're going to need those materials anyway and gathering early means you don't need to buy them later. Also, even if you don't you can sell the mats, and especially tier 2-4 mats can sell for a pretty nice amount.

quote:

Speaking of crafting, any direction in particular that is rewarding? Only started a little tailoring on my elementalist, but so far I haven't made anything useful.

Nah, crafting is not rewarding while leveling and you shouldn't focus on it before you have something specific you want that you need crafting for, unless you particularly enjoy doing it.

quote:

Anything in particular I should be focusing on at low levels? Just running around and exploring, doing those hearts and events that pop up.

Yeah, map exploration is decent XP and gives some other rewards, and running event chains is the best way of getting XP. Also remember that you can go to zones below your own level and the game will scale you down appropriately so you still get decent XP and rewards.

quote:

And lastly, is the European goon guild still active? Is it possible to get an invite if so?

There's currently no active goon guild on EU servers.

# ¿ Jul 20, 2016 14:27

felch me daddy jr.: Oct 30, 2009

eggrolled posted:

So I capped my first character recently, and have been slowly getting masteries and elite specs going. I'm working on getting gear to do fractals etc (and eventually raids), but wanted to make sure I'm on the right track.

Right now I have a Revenant with (Berserker) Exotic Armor/Weapons and mostly Ascended Accessories. I'm still working on the Ascended Accessory slots that are best bought with Guild Commendations, but as a filthy casual I'm not in a huge rush.

Ascended Weapons however, seem to be a goal I'll have to whittle away at. Am I right in assuming I'll be okay running fractals with what I've got (mostly exotics, some asc)? I figure I can hope for some lucky drops while slowly farming away the materials/gold for Ascended Weapons Is this a bad plan or is it pretty much what a fresh 80 has to do?

Sounds like you're on the right way, yeah. Ascended gear can definitely take a while to get for a new player, but fortunately you don't need a lot of ascended to do up to tier 3 fractals, where the drop rates for ascended boxes start getting decent enough that you can expect to get some weapon/armor pieces. Just do your daily fractals every day and you'll see progress. Getting all the way to 150 AR to do level 100 will definitely take a while longer, but you shouldn't let that stop you from doing other stuff like raids, which doesn't strictly require any ascended gear.

# ¿ Jul 21, 2016 12:45

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# ¿ May 9, 2024 22:23

felch me daddy jr.: Oct 30, 2009

Adhesive Gamin posted:

I don't think condi engi really ever got nerfed but they were only there for the Vale Guardian split phase anyway, it's all tempest dps on Gorseval and Sabetha.

They nerfed being able to break all bars with one slick shoes, so now other people actually need to chip in on CC every now and then. But yeah, no one wants engi outside of VG anymore.

# ¿ Jul 21, 2016 23:34

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Video Games > The MMO HMO > Guild Wars 2 - my colon was impacted because we were raiding for so long

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