Guild Wars 2

GW2 kinda has a trinity in enough people's eyes that perception becomes reality, even though the game doesnt enforce it by requiring heals to do anything.

You would think that but some of those dungeons are a complete pain in the ass if they don't know the mechanics or are retarded. Once you've figured out the mechanics it's not too hard but your first time through with a new group is going to be painful.


Edit: was replying to grim.

The biggest problem with the dungeons is you can exploit and bug the fuck out of everything. So the majority don't even learn how to do the dungeons or learn the mechanics.

Hekotat_sl said:

You would think that but some of those dungeons are a complete pain in the ass if they don't know the mechanics or are retarded. Once you've figured out the mechanics it's not too hard but your first time through with a new group is going to be painful.


Edit: was replying to grim.

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Well that's true of many dungeons in other mmos with LFD tools. Usually someone explains the basics if a player speaks up that it is their first time though. Or they carry him until he figures it out on his own, or the group drops.

It's instanced dungeons, there are only so many ways to design jump out of the fire. And more than most mmos, GW2 is begging for a LFD system. It's like they designed the game with one in mind.

I'm not a fan of McDungeon games. But if you're going to make one, then in this day and age you include a LFD system.

Soygen_sl said:

So I'm still leveling and haven't really done any group content. What is the group dynamic like in GW2? What are the challenges of the dungeons if not the standard trinity/healing situation?

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Your well-being is your own responsibility, regardless of class. For max dps - berserker gear, but unless you are running high level fractals, just wear whatever you feel is reasonable and what looks good. Run each dungeon once and then figure out what gear you want to grind appropriate instance. For money - CoF p1, for rares and pink gear, fractals. Run dungeons for leveling, definitely worth it and you aren't all that gimped compared to max level.

Abe: Yeah, but then again I prefer designers letting people figure this stuff out than the game being so rigid any ideas from the players are out of the question.

Zaphid_sl said:

Your well-being is your own responsibility, regardless of class. For max dps - berserker gear, but unless you are running high level fractals, just wear whatever you feel is reasonable and what looks good. Run each dungeon once and then figure out what gear you want to grind appropriate instance. For money - CoF p1, for rares and pink gear, fractals. Run dungeons for leveling, definitely worth it and you aren't all that gimped compared to max level.

Abe: Yeah, but then again I prefer designers letting people figure this stuff out than the game being so rigid any ideas from the players are out of the question.

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Do you scale up in PVE now too?

Soygen_sl said:

So I'm still leveling and haven't really done any group content. What is the group dynamic like in GW2? What are the challenges of the dungeons if not the standard trinity/healing situation?

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Bear in mind I've only bothered with the story modes, so this might change with exploration modes.

The base dynamic is essentially, "handle your own shit": do damage, dodge attacks, keep yourself healed. More working together will be needed if you're using an AoE heal instead of a self-heal, so that you drop it where the most people will be helped; you'll also sometimes see some coordination happen if a player goes down, with some players pulling away the mob, with others running in from the revive. For you run-of-the-mill encounters, that about sums up the group dynamics.

Of course, there are some encounters, the one the immediately comes to mind is an encounter in the Ascalon Catacombs where you need to keep two mobs separated to be able to kill them, where you'll need more planning, but that's it.

bixxby_sl said:

Do you scale up in PVE now too?

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You scale down in instances from launch, fractals are lvl 80 only and most of the new content scales you up.

The nature of combat in dungeons is a bit more chaotic and the challenge is to make sense of the chaos (first run or two tops for experienced MMO players, a lifetime for some others), then the more coordinated people will do faster runs. There is the horrible tendency of mobs to forget players after a short distance (hence, everybody running and skipping trash) which often leads to people dying while running and a loss of time of horrible proportions (classes without stability can have a bad time in certain places, e.g. AC gravelings run).

There are specs/weapons that are flat out better than all the alternatives for certain classes, while others have a broader choice, also condition based specs have troubles overlapping with each other (more than 1 condition based char and the second will be 80% useless due to stack caps on dots), a "trinity" of sorts exists in game and is among the ideal composition fo either fastest runs (CoF p1 farming) or high level fractals for utilities and is usually represented by 1 guardian, 1 mesmer, 3 warriors.

Basically this game has flaws, some are being addressed (slowly), some seem to sit behind for a while. PvP screws PvE as usual, some balancing moves suck in terms of fun and fluidity of the class (yes, I'll get over it, my beloved Illusionist Celerity). I think it's a lot of fun, nonetheless.

I am thinking of playing this again from the beginning. I quit back at release when I got my mesmer to 40 something. I quit because I couldn't stay in a team with my friends in SPvP and WvW was a mindless zerg. Leveling was also a bit of a bore since it was mostly grinding.

Has the game changed much since then and are Necromancer more viable than they were before? How about Engineers? And I mean viability in either PvE or PvP.

Game hasn't changed much overall. Alot has been added. but don't expect some major change in operation.

Necros were never not viable.
Engineers I'm sure are viable. but not very versatile. do you like spamming grenades? (the discharge/rifle builds are fun and viable too) There are a few heavy defense builds as well, but that just makes you a useless rock.

Necros are quite good, both power and condition builds. Many use the "fear+damage" condition spec, with 30 in Spite to pickup also Dhuumfire (burning) and extend their condition duration to +100% for juicy 8s burning, 2 or 3s fears (ticking high damage every 1s), long duration bleeds and monstrous epidemic casts.
It may not be your top speed run comp, but it's really strong.

In PvE there is still the perception that 3 warriors, 1 guardian, 1 mesmer is the top comp, (for CoF p1 maybe) but that's for speed runs and it's questionable at the very least.
I main a thief (I play 99,9% pve only) as I love dodging like crazy, cluster bombing and pistol whipping casters into silence (and downed state too ), but I have several alts I play fairly often and necro is certainly one of my favourites, both in solo and group. I play mostly as power necro, but I'm about to swap to a condition build to try it out with open world champions.

No experience with engineers, can't help you there.

Soygen_sl said:

My warrior is now level 43 and I'm having a lot more fun than I was on the necro. The necro just got beat up a lot and my warrior can take on several mobs at once, even with veterans mixed in the group. I just didn't find the right groove with the necro at lower levels(only got him to level 21). Will probably play warrior to max and then figure out the good builds for him.

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Necro takes a bit to bloom, I'd say at least 40 levels when you have enough trait points to make some funny stuff.
Warrior is also a fun class to level, bit more straightforward to play, but that can be rewarding by itself (just smash faces) and offers excellent dps and support at cap.

The necro did also get some nice buffs with the last big patch; I haven't played around with my layout, but evidently it did make some builds more viable, to the point where people on the official forums are declaring the necro 'fixed', and considering how much they had been bitching about the necro being worthless, I guess that's saying something.

Nija_sl said:

They did something to necro?!

Maybe time to dust off mine. I haven't played since the halloween event and have full epics or whatever. What are interesting builds these days? Do you have any recommendations, Randin?

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I'll admit, I don't tend to be much of a number-cruncher when it comes it comes to building characters, but my standard build, which I've enjoyed, is staff/dual daggers, with wells and Spectral Walk as my utilities, and the flesh golem as my elite. For traits, I go into death, blood, and curses, with the key traits being Greater Marks in the death line (really, that one's mandatory if you're going to use a staff), and Focused Rituals in curses, which lets you target your wells rather than just dropping them at your feet.

I mostly use the staff as my staple, with the daggers being for when the AoE runs the risk of drawing too much agro, or to use the life tap as a back up heal. The staff's generally not the quickest killer, but if you can get your target to sit in both wells, and then start dropping staff marks on their heads, you can knock out a lot of mobs pretty damn quick.

Oh yeah, and on the subject of the last big patch, the highlight for the necro was the addition of afifth death shroud abilitywhich has proved nicely destructive. It sounds like it ought be be even better in pvp.

Oh they finally made some interesting necro builds? Anyone have a link to the burning/fear build? I always loved my necro, but I always felt meh with it.

Draegan_sl said:

Oh they finally made some interesting necro builds? Anyone have a link to the burning/fear build? I always loved my necro, but I always felt meh with it.

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https://docs.google.com/document/d/1...rhc/edit?pli=1

PvE based, but can be probably tweaked for PvP and or WvW. I'm not the original author, found it on gw2guru and cross linked it here.

If you like power based builds, axe is now an excellent weapon, since you're able to pick 2 great traits together now (used to be one or the other): Spite VIII and XII aka Axe training (faster reuse and +damage with axe) and Close to death (+20% damage when mob is at <50% hp). You can build a 30/10/0/0/30 Death shroud nuking monster if you want now (with about 100% crit chance in death shroud).