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Guild Wars 2 - Heart of Thorns |OT| Welcome to the Jungle...
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NotMyUsername
Member
This is a broad question but why do I feel like I die so often as a guardian? Is it simply because I'm still early in the Heart of Thrones content using gear earned while reaching level 80? And I've read I should mostly be in Berserker gear and have 11k health but instead I'm in some mish-mash and have 15k health. I'm assuming I shouldn't be getting hit as hard as I am because it's not uncommon for me to be taking 3k damage from some of these enemies per hit.
There's those frog things that teleport away and then shoot arrows or whatever and those easily were doing 3k per hit and if two of them get on me at once I'm pretty much instantly dead.
I just don't get it. For being a melee class I almost get scared at times jumping in and attacking things.
I read a guardian guide for gear, builds, and rotation but it seemed largely to focus on running in groups (for example it always suggests building for that 20% damage boost when aegis is active, but that rarely lasts while I'm running about). Any general tips might be good so I quit dying.
It also likely doesn't help that I took a year off and now I'm coming back and just sort of fumbling around.
There's those frog things that teleport away and then shoot arrows or whatever and those easily were doing 3k per hit and if two of them get on me at once I'm pretty much instantly dead.
I just don't get it. For being a melee class I almost get scared at times jumping in and attacking things.
I read a guardian guide for gear, builds, and rotation but it seemed largely to focus on running in groups (for example it always suggests building for that 20% damage boost when aegis is active, but that rarely lasts while I'm running about). Any general tips might be good so I quit dying.
It also likely doesn't help that I took a year off and now I'm coming back and just sort of fumbling around.
Mobs in HoT definitely hit harder than in core Tyria. For the most part, you can just run whatever gear you currently have. I know several people that use berserker gear without issue. Learning the attacks of the mobs and being careful to fight one or two at a time helps a lot. If you still have trouble, changing your traits and skills to a more defensive setup works quite well and is much cheaper than getting new gear.
I haven't really played Guardian/Dragonhunter in the jungle so unfortunately I can't provide any class specific tips. Good luck and have fun with the new stuff
Noisy Ninj4
Member
Guardian is much more effective at using active defenses than passive protection/toughness. Focusing on using blind, block, and dodge will give you a lot of survivability from the get go. I also like using meditations on guardian, which heal you when using Monk's Focus trait to help stay alive.
Further, you really have to pay attention to mob abilities. You have to stay mobile, keep out of red circles, and watch for incoming attacks.
appletoasty
Member
The combat in this game relies on active defenses and mitigating damage (blinds, reflects, evades, blocks, etc) rather than passive defenses (having enough hp to facetank everything). It takes a bit of getting used to. Running straight into the jungle is a little bit of trial by fire since everything hits hard and there's mobs EVERYWHERE but you'll learn quick
Open world stuff is pretty rough in melee just because there's so much going on. You could try the Dragonhunter specialization and use a longbow.For the frog things specifically, as a guard you have access to Wall of Reflection (utility). If you put that up between you and them you can make them shoot themselves
Reflects in general are pretty useful in the jungleIt may be worth looking into que quality of your gear. At lv 80 your gear should at very least be Exotic given the boost they are over rares.
NotMyUsername
Member
Instead of quoting everyone I'll just say thanks to all. I do try to dodge the red circles (the tentacle things shoot oodles of them). I think it's also remembering how I was able to just sort of leap in and take on a lot of things while going through the older story stuff but that's not as reliable now in the jungle.
My gear is most definitely not all Exotic level and above. At most half is but I think it's probably less than that. I need to rebind my dodge roll as I haven't been using that after starting back up with a different mouse than before.
I'm only 22% through unlocking Dragonhunter so it'll be quite a while until I have that to spec. I should probably change some of my build to be more solo friendly as right now I think it's more of a glass cannon with some of that advice from the guide I read up on as it assumed I wouldn't be taking hits in a group (though I thought a guardian, hence the name, would be the one to try to take the hits).
Last question: Is there any sort of "central city" for the new content or I just need to zip between Lion's Arch and the jungle when I need to hit up a bank or crafting? So far I'm still in the Verdant area but I believe there's several new zones looking through the achievements.
My gear is most definitely not all Exotic level and above. At most half is but I think it's probably less than that. I need to rebind my dodge roll as I haven't been using that after starting back up with a different mouse than before.
I'm only 22% through unlocking Dragonhunter so it'll be quite a while until I have that to spec. I should probably change some of my build to be more solo friendly as right now I think it's more of a glass cannon with some of that advice from the guide I read up on as it assumed I wouldn't be taking hits in a group (though I thought a guardian, hence the name, would be the one to try to take the hits).
Last question: Is there any sort of "central city" for the new content or I just need to zip between Lion's Arch and the jungle when I need to hit up a bank or crafting? So far I'm still in the Verdant area but I believe there's several new zones looking through the achievements.
NormalFish
Banned
I'm a fan of V for dodge. hit it with the thumb as it rests on spacebar.
NormalFish
Banned
WASD movement
QERFC weapon skills
Shift+Q Shift+E Shift+R utility skills
Mouse 4 healing skill
Mouse 5 ultimate
1-5 professions-specific abilities
V roll
Space jump
X interact
Works pretty well.
QERFC weapon skills
Shift+Q Shift+E Shift+R utility skills
Mouse 4 healing skill
Mouse 5 ultimate
1-5 professions-specific abilities
V roll
Space jump
X interact
Works pretty well.
Nemesis121
Member
WASD movement
Dodge is V
1 2 3 only buttons i press on the KB.
4- to elite skill are mouse click.
F interact
Q weapon switch
I basically left a lot of default set up as, but double tap to dodge was changed day 1, couldn't stand that shit..
Dodge is V
1 2 3 only buttons i press on the KB.
4- to elite skill are mouse click.
F interact
Q weapon switch
I basically left a lot of default set up as, but double tap to dodge was changed day 1, couldn't stand that shit..
Biggest missed opportunity in the game right now; Dry Top is flat out amazing with the combination of Zephyrite crystals and hang gliders, especially the canyon / oasis section. The freedom of movement is fantastic, even with the kind of janky animation going on; you can shoot up cliffsides, launch yourself over outcrops and just soar across to the next crystal deposit. Really fun, glad Maguma Wastes Miner was a daily today.
The HoT zones feel so rigid and predictable, where you go in, get what you need and get out, while the rest of the world feels like a playground you want to spend a lot of time in. I don't think there's anything they can do to fix it other than just never make maps like those again. Tangled Depths is the only one that's interesting so many months later; the rest are just kind of there.
The HoT zones feel so rigid and predictable, where you go in, get what you need and get out, while the rest of the world feels like a playground you want to spend a lot of time in. I don't think there's anything they can do to fix it other than just never make maps like those again. Tangled Depths is the only one that's interesting so many months later; the rest are just kind of there.
Noisy Ninj4
Member
About 99% of GW2 does not specifically involve "taking hits", tanks only really exist for raids. Otherwise survivability is about taking care of yourself and being aware.
HOT doesn't have a specific main city to go to, the closest you get is Tarir. If you need crafting access, I recommend hitting up your home server's Borderland in wvw. If it's full, just go to Rata Sum, or the guild hall if you just need bank access.
Ugh tell me about it! I kept accidently rolling dodge on jump puzzles.
appletoasty
Member
Even for tanking in raids you're required to take care of yourself by evading or blocking, if you let any of the raid bosses slap you in the face for the whole fight you are defs gonna die. I usually tank for my regular group and if I get punched twice in a row I'm down. Healer is too busy to babysit whoever is keeping aggro
Dry Top is seriously awesome with gliding. There's a fun interaction with the purple crystal (skill 3?) and gliding, if you start gliding at the right time during your skill 3 you glide super fast. Same with the launch pads at Teq and in core Tyria. It's great.
Dry Top is great to look at and explore but I wouldn't say it is any less rigid and predictable than the HoT maps... I've been helping a Dry Top guild with organized events recently. There's 3 event chains that repeat over and over until sandstorm with a few awkward extras, and then during Sandstorm you run a very specific chain of events with a zerg and try to tag everything you can, and then you do it all over again. If you run off and do any of the Sandstorm events by yourself people get mad at you because it means everyone else would miss out on it. @_@ There's even two events at the end of Sandstorm that most organized maps will ask people to ignore because it'll scale up the nearby events for Crash Site phase. Dry Top is the definition of scripted. But it's still fun.
I personally love Verdant Brink, flying around in the canopy feels so free and open. They really did a good job with gliding.
Also I got a kitty.
meow
appletoasty
Member
Boss Doggie
all my loli wolf companions are so moe
anet my illusions aren't triggering sigil stuff
anet pls
;_;
anet pls
;_;
That's... not at all what I meant? Just because an organized guild has a specific order / route for doing the events doesn't mean the events themselves are rigid. They happen all over the map at different times, some feed into each other and some don't. You could basically do that with any zone, though Drytop is much more predictable because of the sandstorm meta event (and Silverwastes, even moreso). Still; little one off events occur all over the place and if you're just out exploring you may find something you haven't seen in a while, even if they follow a scheduled pattern.
But compare that to something like Auric Basin where the four pylon events always happen the same way, in the same place, in the same order, forever, and damn near nothing else ever happens outside of them. That's what I was getting at; the HoT zones are super repetitive and don't have much to do off the beaten path, unless the April update changed it up a lot (could be; I still don't spend much time in the HoT zones due to them still being on a schedule).
Noisy Ninj4
Member
A strange shrine has popped up in our guild hall...
Nemesis121
Member
GaF has a dildo in the Hall? lol
Noisy Ninj4
Member
And it's about 14 feet long
So about Gaf average then.
Dry Top events happen at certain times though. During the Crash Site meta, you have 3 groups of events that happen and repeat at:
XX:00, XX:15 and XX:30
XX:05, XX:20 and XX:35
XX:10 and XX:25
Then you have the Sandstorm! meta which has events at XX:40, XX:45, XX:50 and a few more if you got the favor up during the crash site meta.
Dry Top may seem less rigid than AB because it's more spread out whereas AB focuses you towards the center.
Ah, that's good to hear, I might have to wander back into those zones then.
Right, eventually events are going to repeat no matter where you are in the game, but in the old zones they tend to have such a staggered schedule (and a lot of them are player triggered too) that they don't feel that way. DT is on a schedule because of the sandstorm meta event, but even then they're spread out enough that you only notice if you're purposely organizing things with a guide / schedule or you spend a shitload of time in there. The point I was making is that, at least before April, the HoT zones were practically on rails with the way the events fed only into each other and the main meta and there were few, if any, little one-off events to discover on your own.
Nemesis121
Member
appletoasty
Member
The events are rigid, every single one is on a timer. Of all the events on the map, exactly one leads into another, and even that one is on a timer. http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Dry_Top/event_table
I'm not a huge fan of the open world HoT map events either, but everything you're saying here also applies to Dry Top. There's not even a neat world boss event at the end of Dry Top, it's just pppt k Sandstorm's done, do it all over again.
Yeah! I am glad they did this, it will probably make the maps feel more fluid. I haven't had a chance to check most of them out. I've only seen the ones that give you something to do while waiting for challenges to be over.
EDIT: I just thought of something, I really liked Dry Top/Silverwastes because of the way they let them grow into the world with the Living Story. I don't like the new maps as much because they're just sort of there, even if they do tell more story and have more to look at than Dry Top/Silverwastes. Little bits were exposed with every new episode which made it feel more alive and explorable even if they were just events on rails in the end. I really really wish they would've done that with the new maps, maybe expose the new outposts with new living story. We need to look for survivors, let's help the Pale Reavers... now we've met some talking frog people, let's help them out so they'll help us traverse the jungle, etc etc, expanding out slowly with the story. That would've been perfect.
The boldfaced section of the quote is my point; all of the events, even though they're on timers, are still happening in different parts of the map at different times. The HoT maps, on the other hand, are almost entirely chains that feed directly into the singular Meta (at least, pre-April Update). See my above response to Quenk. You can wander around Drytop and, if it's not a super organized map, come across "Dynamic Event A" in the middle of nowhere, and it doesn't finish and go directly to "Dynamic Event B." In fact, that's not really dynamic at all, that's why the HoT zones are described as being "on rails."
I really really wish they would've done that with the new maps, maybe expose the new outposts with new living story. We need to look for survivors, let's help the Pale Reavers... now we've met some talking frog people, let's help them out so they'll help us traverse the jungle, etc etc, expanding out slowly with the story. That would've been perfect.
They should have never done an expansion and done exactly this. Give you plenty of time to get to know characters like Laranthir over the span of several weeks or months so that you actually give a shit about them showing up in later zones, give all the character moments room to breathe and flow naturally instead of jumping from one set piece to the next (Taimi in Rata Novus almost feels like a cut-away gag and doesn't move the story forward in any way except "lol, dragons DO has weaknesses!" which is never even really explained anyways).
The biggest benefit of all though would have been the immediate player feedback and the time to respond accordingly. Instead of four maps that aren't very good all at once, we could have gotten one map that wasn't very good that they adjusted while also making sure the maps that hadn't been released yet were polished further.
The Living World was GW2's "thing", the two-week cycle being a big draw for people sick of the constant content droughts MMOs are notorious for. Now that we're in the expansion cycle, there's one less thing that makes GW2 different.
So you like DT because it doesn't use GW2's dynamic event system and just has several events on a fixed schedule?
I'm saying Dry Top is closer to how the Central Tyria zones' DEs work (which is my preference) than any of the HoT zones.
I think your initial wording was a bit poor which led to this back and forth. DT is just as rigid and schedule based as the HoT maps (if not more so). Saying you prefer the spread of events would have made your point clearer to me.
To the people who expressed interest in late night raiding 11pm'ish. I joined a small side guild of about 5-7 individuals (all took a few months off of gw2) taking 2 weeks to shake off the rust but then wanted to start teaching/progressing into the raids. So will def. get first dibs going out to any Gaf interested when establish days.
The other day I was just running around tagged up in Tangled Depths during the "break" phase, sort of heading toward whatever events were out and about and also stopping to fight any large groups of random mobs for the bonus/killstreak XP, dragging around a small group of 10ish puggles. There always seemed to be something "next" to head toward. Filled up my inventory nice and quick and when the map started actually organizing for the meta I detagged and went on my way (off to do some dungeons) since I knew I wouldn't have time for the full thing. It was actually a lot of fun.
Nemesis121
Member
Since ya'll showed off some Leather classes, this my Ranger, I hate Ranger Coats...
Also my Thief with new Bifrost..
Also my Thief with new Bifrost..
human onion
Banned
Man fuck final exams. Finally done with them.
Boss Doggie
all my loli wolf companions are so moe
Howler is a good offland legendary yes?
Nemesis121
Member
I made it, but sold it because i don't play my warrior anymore, it's Thief or Guardian...Howler paid for Bifrost..
No. Only good offhand legendary is the shield.
appletoasty
Member
The tigers on min size asura are SO TINY. Actual tiger for scale. Ahhhhhhhhh
NormalFish
Banned
I wish they'd scale things less. especially on the smaller side. I wish I could have massive weapons on my asura.
appletoasty
Member
Yay Matthias is kill
If anyone wants to see the raid lore but doesn't want to raid, hit me up in game and you can explore the finished instance
If anyone wants to see the raid lore but doesn't want to raid, hit me up in game and you can explore the finished instance
NobleXenon
Member
Not sure if anyone cares about sales, but it looks like those sales in March help pad the losses of Wild Star for NCSoft.
appletoasty
Member
"The performance of HoT was not as expected. We learnt the lesson. A second expansion is in work and will be released as soon as possible."
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