I'm actually digging the guardian more than I thought I would. I'm normally not too into melee/sword bro classes, but it's a heck of a lot of fun leaping around smashing stuff. The lack of good speed options is pretty rough, but I guess I can look into runes or working out some kind of staff rotation to get swiftness.
anyone else eager as heck to learn about the new elite specializations
had a lot of fun with scrapper, but I'm more of a gun girl
That's probably the biggest draw of another expansion for a lot of people. The current ones are divided between altering what a class does and ones that just covered the same roles as the base class, just doing more of it. Both are viable directions for an elite spec but being able to choose which one wants on a character would be welcome.
I know the thing I got access to as scrapper was a whole lot of stability, which was lacking for engineer before
suspecting we'll get something like torment, confusion, or traps - stuff we don't have already
spoilers for leaked info (I HATE how we keep getting all this info from leaks because Anet is SO gun-shy about releasing any info these days due to people whining about how HoT didn't have xyz stuff they saw in 5 seconds in a trailer...)
The Engineer spec is the Holomancer and will use a sword. Given that name, I think it's VERY likely that we're getting something like Mesmer clones.
Legendary Axe Astralaria:
Tier 3 19/33
Tier 4 todo
Legendary Armour x 3:
150/150 provisioner tokens
68/75 LI (slacked a lot this week)
Tier 1 collection done
Tier 2 collection - Deimos*, Cairn and Volcanic Heart to do
*one day I'll remember to use the heart...
General materials (only mentioning expensive/bizarre stuff):
1/2 Gift of Battle
405/500 Crystalline Ore
43/199 Mystic Clovers
World Explorations done
15/500 Amalgamated gemstones
25/1050 Obisidian Shards
some/lots t3-t6
anyone else eager as heck to learn about the new elite specializations
had a lot of fun with scrapper, but I'm more of a gun girl
That's probably the biggest draw of another expansion for a lot of people. The current ones are divided between altering what a class does and ones that just covered the same roles as the base class, just doing more of it. Both are viable directions for an elite spec but being able to choose which one wants on a character would be welcome.
I think the execution for some of the elite specs was a little off too. Like the longbow for dragonhunters is terrible except in some pvp situations. The traits are good, but dont really synergize well with the longbow. The staff for thief seems weird, because they get more of a monk aesthetic going for them when they are more like rogues or pirates. Like it would have made infinitely more sense for guardians to have a staff to be more like a warrior monk (i know they can already use staves), and the thief to get longbow for a sniper/assassin vibe. Scrapper just like didn't work right, though thematically wasn't bad. I couldn't even tell you what weapon ele's gained from tempest. Druid kind of makes sense as an extension of a animal/pet class, but rangers are more like aragorn than radagast so it just seems like a really abrupt and opposite playstyle between the two.
I kind of wish they would overall just balance the base traits/specializations better with any new stuff that comes out. It makes everything feel very pigeonholed when you can look at something and it be objectively better than something else, which many of the elite specs are. Pretty much only necros and engineers have viable non-elite builds.
anyone else eager as heck to learn about the new elite specializations
had a lot of fun with scrapper, but I'm more of a gun girl
That's probably the biggest draw of another expansion for a lot of people. The current ones are divided between altering what a class does and ones that just covered the same roles as the base class, just doing more of it. Both are viable directions for an elite spec but being able to choose which one wants on a character would be welcome.
I think the execution for some of the elite specs was a little off too. Like the longbow for dragonhunters is terrible except in some pvp situations. The traits are good, but dont really synergize well with the longbow. The staff for thief seems weird, because they get more of a monk aesthetic going for them when they are more like rogues or pirates. Like it would have made infinitely more sense for guardians to have a staff to be more like a warrior monk (i know they can already use staves), and the thief to get longbow for a sniper/assassin vibe. Scrapper just like didn't work right, though thematically wasn't bad. I couldn't even tell you what weapon ele's gained from tempest. Druid kind of makes sense as an extension of a animal/pet class, but rangers are more like aragorn than radagast so it just seems like a really abrupt and opposite playstyle between the two.
I kind of wish they would overall just balance the base traits/specializations better with any new stuff that comes out. It makes everything feel very pigeonholed when you can look at something and it be objectively better than something else, which many of the elite specs are. Pretty much only necros and engineers have viable non-elite builds.
Staff and daredevil for thieves actually worked out extremely well after players got their hands on it. The specialization brought in an acrobat cat burglar feeling to the class that was extremely fun with things like being able to pole vault to either move around or attack things you landed on as well as turning the normal dodge into a flip that did damage to whatever you Mario stomped as you landed. It made thieves actually feel more agile than the other classes and a lot of thief players felt that thief should have felt like daredevil to begin with. It made the class better at what it already did (hitting things) in a way that felt fresh.
Tempest for Elementalists was a case of a spec that made a class do more of what it did but didn't change the feel that much. It's a great set of abilities but nothing that really changed how the class feels outside of hammering home the idea that even ranged classes in GW2 should really be in melee range when possible.
Rangers have viable non-elite builds if they are going for non-support builds. But generally the classes with elite specs that further what they originally were good at are a lot weaker without the elite spec.
I still think the biggest flaw in the game is that there are only like 2 stat sets that anyone uses (viper and berserker), and magi sometimes if someone wants to go turbohealer. Because of the limited number of stat sets, it forces everyone to play pretty much glass cannon, which usually makes at least one of the specs for each class never used because they are focused on survival. Like how often do you hear someone suggest using earth as one of an ele's specs, or valor or honor for guardians? It's just frustrating that there are a lot of options that COULD be viable, like they are right there! They just in 99% of circumstances cannot compete with the "meta" no matter how much I hate it.
Also I think raiding was 100% a terrible thing for the game because it caused the elitists to develop damage meters and find the benchmarks and all the toxic behavior that stems from that. I know that's probably not going to be a popular opinion but it can't hurt to throw it out there.
I am reasonably excited that the new expansion could be cool because of the leaked theme of
desert/genies/egyptian
type of stuff. Some of the leaked new elite stuff looks cool though I understand they arent set in stone or confirmed. While I liked some things about HoT, I hope the next expansion is even better.
I still think the biggest flaw in the game is that there are only like 2 stat sets that anyone uses (viper and berserker), and magi sometimes if someone wants to go turbohealer. Because of the limited number of stat sets, it forces everyone to play pretty much glass cannon, which usually makes at least one of the specs for each class never used because they are focused on survival. Like how often do you hear someone suggest using earth as one of an ele's specs, or valor or honor for guardians? It's just frustrating that there are a lot of options that COULD be viable, like they are right there! They just in 99% of circumstances cannot compete with the "meta" no matter how much I hate it.
Also I think raiding was 100% a terrible thing for the game because it caused the elitists to develop damage meters and find the benchmarks and all the toxic behavior that stems from that. I know that's probably not going to be a popular opinion but it can't hurt to throw it out there.
I am reasonably excited that the new expansion could be cool because of the leaked theme of
desert/genies/egyptian
type of stuff. Some of the leaked new elite stuff looks cool though I understand they arent set in stone or confirmed. While I liked some things about HoT, I hope the next expansion is even better.
I just never do raids or fractals or even dungeons, and that lets me use whatever stat sets I think are cool. Is it optimal? Holy shit I hope not, because that would bore me to tears.
I still think the biggest flaw in the game is that there are only like 2 stat sets that anyone uses (viper and berserker), and magi sometimes if someone wants to go turbohealer. Because of the limited number of stat sets, it forces everyone to play pretty much glass cannon, which usually makes at least one of the specs for each class never used because they are focused on survival. Like how often do you hear someone suggest using earth as one of an ele's specs, or valor or honor for guardians? It's just frustrating that there are a lot of options that COULD be viable, like they are right there! They just in 99% of circumstances cannot compete with the "meta" no matter how much I hate it.
Also I think raiding was 100% a terrible thing for the game because it caused the elitists to develop damage meters and find the benchmarks and all the toxic behavior that stems from that. I know that's probably not going to be a popular opinion but it can't hurt to throw it out there.
I am reasonably excited that the new expansion could be cool because of the leaked theme of
desert/genies/egyptian
type of stuff. Some of the leaked new elite stuff looks cool though I understand they arent set in stone or confirmed. While I liked some things about HoT, I hope the next expansion is even better.
A lot of that has to do with the fact that damage negation is a thing in GW2. Most MMOs you can't dodge big attacks or block them for 100% negation, making tankiness something you always have to keep in mind. When survival can be as much (or more) about skill as it is gear, the meta is always going to go towards the absolute highest damage output, regardless of raids existing as a motivator or not. There is a reason why the vast majority of meta builds using traitlines like Earth or Valor are sPvP or WvW builds.
That being said, I don't think there is a single person here that uses the same build for instance play as they do for solo/open world stuff. When you are the only one getting hit and can't rely on someone else to bring some sort of support, you absolutely need something to help you last.
Ironically enough, one of the reasons Necros have been fairly popular in fractals long after ANET had fixed the toughness issue (that made condi damage builds required above 50) is because it's arguably one of the tankiest profession when you either do not or can not rely on more active defenses. In PvP the lack of and blocks or evade abilities makes necros almost glass cannons, but in PvE with the significantly fewer occurrences of incoming burst damage (even in fractals) you can last a long time.
As for the spoiler,
You want to know more about that region, I would consider looking into Guild Wars: Nightfall; the top half of that expansion looks to be the bottom half of the upcoming one, the rest taking place at what once was the Crystal Desert from GW1.
I just never do raids or fractals or even dungeons, and that lets me use whatever stat sets I think are cool. Is it optimal? Holy shit I hope not, because that would bore me to tears.
Anyone who says you need to min-max for T2 or lower fractals, much less dungeons, is lying to you. In fact, I'd argue that until you get to T4 fractals or raids, what you "must" have for most classes is only a handful of skills and a traitline or two, everything else can be up to you and 90% of people won't even notice the difference.
I've run full berserker warrior since I hit 80 and got exotics. Granted warrior is really solid and can clear most stuff by pressing 2 holding a greatsword. I do sometimes change stuff for solo challenge stuff.
Only change is to drop PS to get warriors sprint so I don't have to weapon swap for swiftness.
@Foefaller is right though the game rewards skill more than gear, so knowing content is way more important than hitting 100% expertise.
Also I think raiding was 100% a terrible thing for the game because it caused the elitists to develop damage meters and find the benchmarks and all the toxic behavior that stems from that. I know that's probably not going to be a popular opinion but it can't hurt to throw it out there.
Many of you know I was utterly horrified when I heard raiding was coming to GW2 - I'd come from 3 night a week HC raiding in WoW, and didn't want to go back to that environment. I avoided it for months on end except for when @CorriganX put together a group which ultimately failed to down anything, largely as we had a constantly rotating cast
Then I went to TTS training raid, and realised you don't have to deal with the elitism to raid successfully, and just like with everything else in GW2, you don't have to treat it as a job. I've now hooked up with a "casual raiding guild" where I can do as little or as much per week as I feel like, usually only raiding on Mondays and occasionally Friday, and where if I'm running a bit of a non-standard build (back warg ranger with spider anyone? Condi ele before it was a 'thing'?), as long as I do my job, they don't care. (Ditto with first time kills, as long as I've read up, and listen to instructions, they don't care). There are other groups who have similar attitudes, such as @naengwen 's.
TL:DR, raiding has resulted in some elitism, but it's not a mandatory component with the right groups. I've cleared every boss without a toxic environment.
I still think the biggest flaw in the game is that there are only like 2 stat sets that anyone uses (viper and berserker), and magi sometimes if someone wants to go turbohealer. Because of the limited number of stat sets, it forces everyone to play pretty much glass cannon, which usually makes at least one of the specs for each class never used because they are focused on survival. Like how often do you hear someone suggest using earth as one of an ele's specs, or valor or honor for guardians? It's just frustrating that there are a lot of options that COULD be viable, like they are right there! They just in 99% of circumstances cannot compete with the "meta" no matter how much I hate it.
Also I think raiding was 100% a terrible thing for the game because it caused the elitists to develop damage meters and find the benchmarks and all the toxic behavior that stems from that. I know that's probably not going to be a popular opinion but it can't hurt to throw it out there.
I am reasonably excited that the new expansion could be cool because of the leaked theme of
desert/genies/egyptian
type of stuff. Some of the leaked new elite stuff looks cool though I understand they arent set in stone or confirmed. While I liked some things about HoT, I hope the next expansion is even better.
A lot of that has to do with the fact that damage negation is a thing in GW2. Most MMOs you can't dodge big attacks or block them for 100% negation, making tankiness something you always have to keep in mind. When survival can be as much (or more) about skill as it is gear, the meta is always going to go towards the absolute highest damage output, regardless of raids existing as a motivator or not. There is a reason why the vast majority of meta builds using traitlines like Earth or Valor are sPvP or WvW builds.
That being said, I don't think there is a single person here that uses the same build for instance play as they do for solo/open world stuff. When you are the only one getting hit and can't rely on someone else to bring some sort of support, you absolutely need something to help you last.
Ironically enough, one of the reasons Necros have been fairly popular in fractals long after ANET had fixed the toughness issue (that made condi damage builds required above 50) is because it's arguably one of the tankiest profession when you either do not or can not rely on more active defenses. In PvP the lack of and blocks or evade abilities makes necros almost glass cannons, but in PvE with the significantly fewer occurrences of incoming burst damage (even in fractals) you can last a long time.
As for the spoiler,
You want to know more about that region, I would consider looking into Guild Wars: Nightfall; the top half of that expansion looks to be the bottom half of the upcoming one, the rest taking place at what once was the Crystal Desert from GW1.
I just never do raids or fractals or even dungeons, and that lets me use whatever stat sets I think are cool. Is it optimal? Holy shit I hope not, because that would bore me to tears.
Anyone who says you need to min-max for T2 or lower fractals, much less dungeons, is lying to you. In fact, I'd argue that until you get to T4 fractals or raids, what you "must" have for most classes is only a handful of skills and a traitline or two, everything else can be up to you and 90% of people won't even notice the difference.
Well mostly it's just the :effort: associated with learning fractals and dungeons and stuff, not so much the gear, that stops me from doing them. I just want easy story content and to use whatever skills and equipment I currently think are neat. I don't want to do anything that requires any thought or effort. I mean hell, until just recently I was vendoring or deleting every item I picked up because I didn't even want to bother with selling the stuff to other players (I didn't realize it was as easy as it is)
Also I think raiding was 100% a terrible thing for the game because it caused the elitists to develop damage meters and find the benchmarks and all the toxic behavior that stems from that. I know that's probably not going to be a popular opinion but it can't hurt to throw it out there.
If you don't like raiding that's fine, I don't raid myself. However, I don't know if you're relatively new to the game or looking through some rose tinted aviators but elitism, damage meters, cookiecutter/top/benchmark builds, and toxic geese all existed when dungeons were the go to "end game" group content. Long before raids were released.
Instead of DnT we have QT, instead of GW2DMG Meter we have ARCDPS and BGDM, and instead of "LFM CoF P1 Zerk War Only" we have "Mirror comp, 150 LI, 2 credits on IMBD, mortgage, name that begins with vowels only"
I love healing as engie, but I'm currently grinding for crafting material and have resorted to zerker + mercenary to speed that up
my big goal rn is to load up on legendaries, because I love constantly trying out new builds and legendary items let me switch stats on the fly - since I only play one character anyways, it makes a lot of sense to just put that all in on my engie
the only thing I'm not looking forward to is raiding for armor materials, but I've been running a few dungeons lately and they're not as bad as I remember them being? maybe raids will be fun as well - Tequatl was pretty enjoyable
edit: I may keep a single ascended set loaded up with agony resistance just for when I run fractals... I say, as someone who has literally never ran a fractal
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Miss me? Find me on:
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Legendary Axe Astralaria:
Tier 3 19/33
Tier 4 todo
Legendary Armour x 3:
150/150 provisioner tokens
68/75 LI (slacked a lot this week)
Tier 1 collection done
Tier 2 collection - Deimos*, Cairn and Volcanic Heart to do
*one day I'll remember to use the heart...
General materials (only mentioning expensive/bizarre stuff):
1/2 Gift of Battle
405/500 Crystalline Ore
43/199 Mystic Clovers
World Explorations done
15/500 Amalgamated gemstones
25/1050 Obisidian Shards
some/lots t3-t6
I just got done doing something like this myself, though it was just two Tyria legendaries. I'm still putting together my 3rd set of legendary armor, only need the insights from raiding and I'll be good to go there
But yeah. Incinerator went to my condi ele (spoilered for clutter):
She's a fresh ele, but I've had a concept worked out for her for a while. I was hoping to make her as a tengu but I'm losing hope in that one happening ;_;
Anyways, the other one was juggernaut which went to my guardian, of course. One because guardians use hammers best in PvE (sorry scrappers :bigfrown: ), and two because LOOK AT THIS GLORIOUS SHIT
I did not touch dyes once in any of those pics. THATS THE POWER OF CHROME
This is probably the closest to a legendary I'll ever get, and it was via an easy quest: restoring Caladbolg! I went ahead and switched my armor's look to match the sword itself and I gotta say that I'm pretty impressed with the whole ensemble. Sylvari cultural armor is still the best looking armor in the game.
I run around in a set of soldiers armor on my daredevil all the time for what is worth. Getting one shotted by trash mobs while running around the new zones loses it's appeal after a while. I still carry zerkers with me but don't actually use it often.
I run around in a set of soldiers armor on my daredevil all the time for what is worth. Getting one shotted by trash mobs while running around the new zones loses it's appeal after a while. I still carry zerkers with me but don't actually use it often.
The Sinister trait does a good job of adding durability without much drop in damage and often gets used in WvW for that reason. I have 2 pieces normally on my Daredevil. That said, few things live long enough to hit him due to all the evasion he has access to. Staff 5 isn't great dps, but it's enough ruin a pack of mobs in the open world while evading their attacks. Spamming it on pocket raptor packs is especially gratifying given how much trouble they gave me early on in HoT.
I understand that the leather shortage is driving the price of other goods down as people are bottlenecked by leather and don't need anything else, which they keep stockpiling in greater and greater quantities as everything else actually drops regularly.
Meanwhile, the Lake Doric Glue Factory never sleeps.
So I witnessed Watchtower Cliffs in Lake Doric for the first time tonight...do the devs condone what happens there?
You mean the huge murderwankfest? Probably not, but it's fun
Actually, the devs deliberately built it for the systematic murder of centaurs on an industrial scale.
Game needed a more reliable source of leather to bring TP prices down.
Jeebus...they have to be looking into a more elegant solution right?
Kinda already is an elegant solution; all the mobs and events in the LS Season 3 maps can drop leather scraps that can be salvaged into leather of any tier. I wouldn't be surprised if that remains a thing in the expansion as well.
Though the Centaur glue factory is a tradition that started well before Lake Doric, as anyone who's done Hirathi Hinterland's world boss can attest to.
I understand that the leather shortage is driving the price of other goods down as people are bottlenecked by leather and don't need anything else, which they keep stockpiling in greater and greater quantities as everything else actually drops regularly.
Meanwhile, the Lake Doric Glue Factory never sleeps.
The price of leather is CRAZY and completely horrible. It has driven the price of every other armor crafting material down simply because you gain so much in comparison to leather that you can't use nearly as much as you'd like. Its so insane. The triple whammy they did DESTROYED the leather balance.
CorriganX on Steam and just about everywhere else.
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BethrynUnhappiness is MandatoryRegistered Userregular
Yeah, they've long needed to revert the change to leather conversion crafting that was made around HoT's release, but instead they keep doing stupid stuff like the Centaur farm rather than admitting they fucked up.
Since ive been playing my thief so much, i might have to park my engineer out there for a while so i can farm leather to make my thief some ascended gear. Should be super boring...
1. What is the best time of day to get in on the Lake Doric murderfest?
2. What is the best Engineer build for the Lake Doric murderfest?
I might hop back on for once to farm leather for a while just to get gold. If prices STILL aren't going down despite the leather farm, that'll be a pretty reliable way to make fat cash...
1. What is the best time of day to get in on the Lake Doric murderfest?
2. What is the best Engineer build for the Lake Doric murderfest?
I might hop back on for once to farm leather for a while just to get gold. If prices STILL aren't going down despite the leather farm, that'll be a pretty reliable way to make fat cash...
From my limited experience, it seems to be an all day type of activity and that build probably does not matter much as long as your turrets can tag the gluebags.
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had a lot of fun with scrapper, but I'm more of a gun girl
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That's probably the biggest draw of another expansion for a lot of people. The current ones are divided between altering what a class does and ones that just covered the same roles as the base class, just doing more of it. Both are viable directions for an elite spec but being able to choose which one wants on a character would be welcome.
Steam Profile
3DS: 3454-0268-5595 Battle.net: SteelAngel#1772
suspecting we'll get something like torment, confusion, or traps - stuff we don't have already
Twitch (I stream most days of the week)
Twitter (mean leftist discourse)
spoilers for leaked info (I HATE how we keep getting all this info from leaks because Anet is SO gun-shy about releasing any info these days due to people whining about how HoT didn't have xyz stuff they saw in 5 seconds in a trailer...)
https://podcast.tidalwavegames.com/
Project go big or go home update 1/many
Reminder: I'm crazy and decided to make 2 legendary weapons and 3 armour pieces simultaneously... I'm totally sane.. totally....
Item Specific materials
Legendary ShortbowChuka_and_Champawat :
READY
Legendary Axe Astralaria:
Tier 3 19/33
Tier 4 todo
Legendary Armour x 3:
150/150 provisioner tokens
68/75 LI (slacked a lot this week)
Tier 1 collection done
Tier 2 collection - Deimos*, Cairn and Volcanic Heart to do
*one day I'll remember to use the heart...
General materials (only mentioning expensive/bizarre stuff):
1/2 Gift of Battle
405/500 Crystalline Ore
43/199 Mystic Clovers
World Explorations done
15/500 Amalgamated gemstones
25/1050 Obisidian Shards
some/lots t3-t6
I think the execution for some of the elite specs was a little off too. Like the longbow for dragonhunters is terrible except in some pvp situations. The traits are good, but dont really synergize well with the longbow. The staff for thief seems weird, because they get more of a monk aesthetic going for them when they are more like rogues or pirates. Like it would have made infinitely more sense for guardians to have a staff to be more like a warrior monk (i know they can already use staves), and the thief to get longbow for a sniper/assassin vibe. Scrapper just like didn't work right, though thematically wasn't bad. I couldn't even tell you what weapon ele's gained from tempest. Druid kind of makes sense as an extension of a animal/pet class, but rangers are more like aragorn than radagast so it just seems like a really abrupt and opposite playstyle between the two.
I kind of wish they would overall just balance the base traits/specializations better with any new stuff that comes out. It makes everything feel very pigeonholed when you can look at something and it be objectively better than something else, which many of the elite specs are. Pretty much only necros and engineers have viable non-elite builds.
Steam: https://steamcommunity.com/profiles/76561198004484595
Staff and daredevil for thieves actually worked out extremely well after players got their hands on it. The specialization brought in an acrobat cat burglar feeling to the class that was extremely fun with things like being able to pole vault to either move around or attack things you landed on as well as turning the normal dodge into a flip that did damage to whatever you Mario stomped as you landed. It made thieves actually feel more agile than the other classes and a lot of thief players felt that thief should have felt like daredevil to begin with. It made the class better at what it already did (hitting things) in a way that felt fresh.
Tempest for Elementalists was a case of a spec that made a class do more of what it did but didn't change the feel that much. It's a great set of abilities but nothing that really changed how the class feels outside of hammering home the idea that even ranged classes in GW2 should really be in melee range when possible.
Rangers have viable non-elite builds if they are going for non-support builds. But generally the classes with elite specs that further what they originally were good at are a lot weaker without the elite spec.
Steam Profile
3DS: 3454-0268-5595 Battle.net: SteelAngel#1772
Also I think raiding was 100% a terrible thing for the game because it caused the elitists to develop damage meters and find the benchmarks and all the toxic behavior that stems from that. I know that's probably not going to be a popular opinion but it can't hurt to throw it out there.
I am reasonably excited that the new expansion could be cool because of the leaked theme of
Steam: https://steamcommunity.com/profiles/76561198004484595
I just never do raids or fractals or even dungeons, and that lets me use whatever stat sets I think are cool. Is it optimal? Holy shit I hope not, because that would bore me to tears.
A lot of that has to do with the fact that damage negation is a thing in GW2. Most MMOs you can't dodge big attacks or block them for 100% negation, making tankiness something you always have to keep in mind. When survival can be as much (or more) about skill as it is gear, the meta is always going to go towards the absolute highest damage output, regardless of raids existing as a motivator or not. There is a reason why the vast majority of meta builds using traitlines like Earth or Valor are sPvP or WvW builds.
That being said, I don't think there is a single person here that uses the same build for instance play as they do for solo/open world stuff. When you are the only one getting hit and can't rely on someone else to bring some sort of support, you absolutely need something to help you last.
Ironically enough, one of the reasons Necros have been fairly popular in fractals long after ANET had fixed the toughness issue (that made condi damage builds required above 50) is because it's arguably one of the tankiest profession when you either do not or can not rely on more active defenses. In PvP the lack of and blocks or evade abilities makes necros almost glass cannons, but in PvE with the significantly fewer occurrences of incoming burst damage (even in fractals) you can last a long time.
As for the spoiler,
Anyone who says you need to min-max for T2 or lower fractals, much less dungeons, is lying to you. In fact, I'd argue that until you get to T4 fractals or raids, what you "must" have for most classes is only a handful of skills and a traitline or two, everything else can be up to you and 90% of people won't even notice the difference.
Only change is to drop PS to get warriors sprint so I don't have to weapon swap for swiftness.
@Foefaller is right though the game rewards skill more than gear, so knowing content is way more important than hitting 100% expertise.
Many of you know I was utterly horrified when I heard raiding was coming to GW2 - I'd come from 3 night a week HC raiding in WoW, and didn't want to go back to that environment. I avoided it for months on end except for when @CorriganX put together a group which ultimately failed to down anything, largely as we had a constantly rotating cast
Then I went to TTS training raid, and realised you don't have to deal with the elitism to raid successfully, and just like with everything else in GW2, you don't have to treat it as a job. I've now hooked up with a "casual raiding guild" where I can do as little or as much per week as I feel like, usually only raiding on Mondays and occasionally Friday, and where if I'm running a bit of a non-standard build (back warg ranger with spider anyone? Condi ele before it was a 'thing'?), as long as I do my job, they don't care. (Ditto with first time kills, as long as I've read up, and listen to instructions, they don't care). There are other groups who have similar attitudes, such as @naengwen 's.
TL:DR, raiding has resulted in some elitism, but it's not a mandatory component with the right groups. I've cleared every boss without a toxic environment.
Well mostly it's just the :effort: associated with learning fractals and dungeons and stuff, not so much the gear, that stops me from doing them. I just want easy story content and to use whatever skills and equipment I currently think are neat. I don't want to do anything that requires any thought or effort. I mean hell, until just recently I was vendoring or deleting every item I picked up because I didn't even want to bother with selling the stuff to other players (I didn't realize it was as easy as it is)
If you don't like raiding that's fine, I don't raid myself. However, I don't know if you're relatively new to the game or looking through some rose tinted aviators but elitism, damage meters, cookiecutter/top/benchmark builds, and toxic geese all existed when dungeons were the go to "end game" group content. Long before raids were released.
Instead of DnT we have QT, instead of GW2DMG Meter we have ARCDPS and BGDM, and instead of "LFM CoF P1 Zerk War Only" we have "Mirror comp, 150 LI, 2 credits on IMBD, mortgage, name that begins with vowels only"
GW2: Tavalisk.9463
my big goal rn is to load up on legendaries, because I love constantly trying out new builds and legendary items let me switch stats on the fly - since I only play one character anyways, it makes a lot of sense to just put that all in on my engie
the only thing I'm not looking forward to is raiding for armor materials, but I've been running a few dungeons lately and they're not as bad as I remember them being? maybe raids will be fun as well - Tequatl was pretty enjoyable
edit: I may keep a single ascended set loaded up with agony resistance just for when I run fractals... I say, as someone who has literally never ran a fractal
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I just got done doing something like this myself, though it was just two Tyria legendaries. I'm still putting together my 3rd set of legendary armor, only need the insights from raiding and I'll be good to go there
But yeah. Incinerator went to my condi ele (spoilered for clutter):
Anyways, the other one was juggernaut which went to my guardian, of course. One because guardians use hammers best in PvE (sorry scrappers :bigfrown: ), and two because LOOK AT THIS GLORIOUS SHIT
I did not touch dyes once in any of those pics. THATS THE POWER OF CHROME
The Sinister trait does a good job of adding durability without much drop in damage and often gets used in WvW for that reason. I have 2 pieces normally on my Daredevil. That said, few things live long enough to hit him due to all the evasion he has access to. Staff 5 isn't great dps, but it's enough ruin a pack of mobs in the open world while evading their attacks. Spamming it on pocket raptor packs is especially gratifying given how much trouble they gave me early on in HoT.
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Law and Order ≠ Justice
ACNH Island Isla Cero: DA-3082-2045-4142
Captain of the SES Comptroller of the State
You mean the huge murderwankfest? Probably not, but it's fun
Law and Order ≠ Justice
ACNH Island Isla Cero: DA-3082-2045-4142
Captain of the SES Comptroller of the State
Actually, the devs deliberately built it for the systematic murder of centaurs on an industrial scale.
Game needed a more reliable source of leather to bring TP prices down.
Those centaurs deserve it anyway
Jeebus...they have to be looking into a more elegant solution right?
Law and Order ≠ Justice
ACNH Island Isla Cero: DA-3082-2045-4142
Captain of the SES Comptroller of the State
Meanwhile, the Lake Doric Glue Factory never sleeps.
Kinda already is an elegant solution; all the mobs and events in the LS Season 3 maps can drop leather scraps that can be salvaged into leather of any tier. I wouldn't be surprised if that remains a thing in the expansion as well.
Though the Centaur glue factory is a tradition that started well before Lake Doric, as anyone who's done Hirathi Hinterland's world boss can attest to.
The price of leather is CRAZY and completely horrible. It has driven the price of every other armor crafting material down simply because you gain so much in comparison to leather that you can't use nearly as much as you'd like. Its so insane. The triple whammy they did DESTROYED the leather balance.
CorriganX on Steam and just about everywhere else.
Steam: https://steamcommunity.com/profiles/76561198004484595
1. What is the best time of day to get in on the Lake Doric murderfest?
2. What is the best Engineer build for the Lake Doric murderfest?
I might hop back on for once to farm leather for a while just to get gold. If prices STILL aren't going down despite the leather farm, that'll be a pretty reliable way to make fat cash...
https://podcast.tidalwavegames.com/
From my limited experience, it seems to be an all day type of activity and that build probably does not matter much as long as your turrets can tag the gluebags.
Law and Order ≠ Justice
ACNH Island Isla Cero: DA-3082-2045-4142
Captain of the SES Comptroller of the State
https://podcast.tidalwavegames.com/
j f c
I wonder if one can even AFK doing that. If so, I may just set it up and go shopping today.
https://podcast.tidalwavegames.com/