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[entropy3]

Hello everybody,

In this post I will describe a group comp for dungeon running that I believe is very effective, versatile, and capable of both good offence and defense. While I understand this is my personal opinion, I think that this is the Ideal group comp for dungeons, especially if the dungeon is completely unknown to all party members as it has the tools to handle many of the current dungeon mechanics. That all being said, if you have any constructive feedback please let me know! Well then, lets get on with it!

Summary
1. Main Builds
2. Alternate Builds
3. Pros and Cons
4. Situation Handling
5. Closing Remarks

BUILDS

In this section I will describe the builds that make up the composition. As a rule of thumb, some utilities, weapons, and elites are optional and should be changed based on the situation you find yourself in.

1. Axe/Warhorn and Rifle Power Warrior
Traits and Utilities: http://www.gw2db.com...|0|0|0|0|0|0|0|

Weapons:
- Axe/Warhorn
- Rifle

Equipment:
- Knights Armor w/ 6x Runes of the Pack
- Valkyrie Weapons
- Knights Trinkets

Main Role: Single Target Damage

General Idea: Hard-hitting spike class. Goes for marked target until it's dead, then moves on to the next one. Recommended to be the marker of targets due to role. If needed, Rifle provides some ranged options and is traited to pierce targets for at least some form of multi-target dps. High toughness, low vitality makes vulnerable to conditions, which is why Mending and Signet of Stamina are recommended. When off CD, Use Warhorn 5 often to upkeep the group vigor (Very Important!)

2. Symbol Support Guardian
Traits and Utilities: http://www.gw2db.com...|0|0|0|0|0|0|0|

Weapons:
- 2H Hammer OR Mace/Shield
- Staff

Equipment:
- Soldiers Armor w/ 3x Water and 3x Monk Runes
- Clerics Weapons (Or the AC Pre/Vit/Healing Weapons)
- Clerics Trinkets

Main Role: Melee Support and Healing

General Idea: Melee Support Class. Use 2H Hammer for spammable protection and smaller healing and control, or Mace/Shield for larger healing, group protection and reflection. Staff provides larger range and some aoe, but is mostly brought for Staff 4. Use this whenever you can to heal and increase group DPS through might stacks. with +40% boon duration, each might stack will last around 11 seconds. If range is necessary, I recommend Mace/Shield and Scepter.

3. Glamour Support Mesmer
Traits and Utilities: http://www.gw2db.com...|0|0|0|0|0|0|0|

Weapons:
- Greatsword
- Staff

Equipment:
- Rampagers Armor w/ any DPS based rune (6x Pack works)
- Soldiers weapons
- Knights trinkets

Main Role: General Support and Medium DPS

General Idea: General Ranged support. Feedback, Null Field, and Illusion of Life are life savers and are all traited. If you pick someone up using IoL, make sure they run to safety and don't continue fighting, unless it is obvious they can kill something. Generally keep an eye out for Ranged attackers, Mass conditions on your party, and downed party members and use your utilities accordingly. Drop Chaos Storm on party members that have aggro (default on the melee players). Use it defensively by default. Your job is to provide what DPS you can while using the mesmers unique support smartly. Also, for spiking down a target at the start of a fight, coordinate time warp so all players are affected.

4. S/D Might Stacking Elementalist
Traits and Utilities: http://www.gw2db.com...|0|0|0|0|0|0|0|

Weapons:
- Scepter/Dagger

Equipment:
- Soldiers Armor w/ 3x Water and 3x Monk Runes
- Clerics Weapons
- Clerics Trinkets

Main Role: Offensive Support

General Idea: Buffing yourself and allies with might through use of fire fields and blast finishers. Increases overall group DPS as well as providing other useful long lasting buffs through attunement swapping. The general combo for max might stacks is: Ring of Fire -> Dragon Tooth -> Pheonix -> Arcane Wave -> EARTH -> Earthquake -> Churning Earth -> Dodge (Evasive Arcana). Once that combo is finished, Swap through to water and maybe air to use your heals and blinds, then continue to perform the above combo while dealing damage to give out continuous might buffs.

5. Staff Support Elementalist
Traits and Utilities: http://www.gw2db.com...|0|0|0|0|0|0|0|

Weapons:
- Staff

Equipment:
- Soldiers Armor w/ 3x Water and 3x Monk Runes
- Clerics Weapons
- Clerics Trinkets

Main Role: Group Healing and AoE Damage

General Idea: Healing your group through water attunement and blast finishers, then dealing large AoE damage via fire and earth attunement. When your group needs healed or conditions wiped, use Healing Rain followed by Geyser, then immediately place an Eruption within the healing rain for the blast finisher, followed by arcane wave and a dodge. Switch between attunements (usually mainly in fire) to provide AoE damage, buffs and CC/slow enemies.

ALTERNATE BUILDS

1. Venom Share Theif
Traits and Utilities: http://www.gw2db.com...78|0|0|0|0|0|0|

Weapons:
- Shortbow
- Sword/Pistol

Equipment:
- Soldiers Armor w/ 6x Runes of Lyssa
- Knights Weapons
- Knights Trinkets

Main Role: Debuffing Conditions Support

General Idea: Debuffs and controls the enemy through use of venoms. Before aggroing a tough group or even a boss, stack the group up and apply all your venoms. The spread of weakness and vulnerability lower their damage and increase yours, and immobilize and stone gives your group free time to focus on damage and make for easy aoe placement. Runes of Lyssa give unique buffs that work well with the short CD heal and elite. Basically use your venoms on CD and nearby party members.

Replaces:
1. Symbol Support Guardian - If you're warrior isn't having trouble staying alive.
2. Glamour Support Mesmer - If ranged mobs aren't prevalent and you just want more damage.
3. Others not recommended to switch out.

Recommend more replacements, but please provide all the information I provide above. (i.e. link to build, weapon, armor, main role, use, and replacement info)

PROS AND CONS

Pros:
- Extreme Spiking Capability
- High Group DPS
- High Dodging availability (via vigor, traits, and utilities)
- Multiple sources of reflection (via Mesmer and Guardian)
- Good at destroying objects
- Portal available for various purposes
- Many sources of both Defensive and Offensive boons and healing
- Multiple indirect sources of damaging conditions
- Distractions via clones and elementals

Cons:
- No full condition builds so somewhat weaker against heavily armored enemies
- If you have any other cons let me know and I'll add them if they make sense

SITUATION HANDLING

Spiking:

1. Get max (25) might stacks using the S/D ele's fire field and blast finishers, the guardians mighty blow (blast finisher), and the staff eles eruption and a dodge. This should last around 30s and will give your entire group an extra 875 power and condition damage. The guardian can also use Staff 4 for more might after the first stacks wear off and the S/D ele will be giving more might out over the course of the fight.

2. Call a target.

3. Once all players are set up and starting to attack, the mesmer should cast Time Warp to hit as many players as possible. Communication helps here. With the might and Time Warp, its pretty safe to say that the group's dps is near doubled.

General Boss Fighting:

The group comp is a mix of offence and defense, but leaning towards offence. All classes have good DPS ability and at least high/medium power. That being said, while there is good defense via protection, regen, condition removal, reflection, and healing, the best defense is player awareness and always being able to dodge during a boss fight. Were talking like Giganticus Lupicus type fights. That being said, all classes have some way to get vigor or have some form of extra endurance regen. The warrior fills in the gap with a 10s AoE vigor on warhorn. While its not like perma-vigor on everyone, there is enough to boost dodging availability significantly in hard fights. Other than that, the tactics really depend on the specific boss fight.

CLOSING REMARKS

This group comp is intended for advanced dungeon play. I by no means believe it is the end-all-be-all of groups and any group comp can work based upon the skills of the player and coordination of the group. I believe, however, that this group is ideal for dungeon play because it gives the players all the tools they need to be prepared for any situation and allow their skills to shine through. The idea is versatility, both within each build and as a group. Each build has things that can be swapped out depending on the situation (for example, both elementalists utilities are completely interchangeable), while other things may be set in stone (like the warrior's weapon choices) because the build is built around those things. This provides each player with some choices to promote smart play and versatility.

Please tell me what you think, good or bad, below, but please try to be constructive.

Thanks for reading!

Edited by entropy3, 08 November 2012 - 09:22 PM.

[Bloggi]

Thanks for the writeup and good reading. If what you say is right, it makes me really glad to have a staff support ele well underway after spending all that time and effort on my necro since headstart. I haven't personally played the other professions (not to the degree that I can comment), however the warrior, guardian and mesmer look like good logical choices. There will probably be a lot of opinions on your post which will make an interesting discussion.

[NachyoChez]

Wouldn't you get more effect from a support-based warrior (Vigorous Shouts, Soldier's Runes), and then switching the Ele to be more DPS?  Seems that would increase both DPS (since healing warriors still do decent damage, and an ele can pack a PUNCH) and healing (burst healing from a shout warrior can exceed 300 Health per second if geared correctly [280 is EASILY achieved]), in addition to AoE CC removal, stun breaking, and condition sheering.

Admittedly, I've not done heavy research into the Ele's support abilities, but it would be hard pressed, imho, to exceed that build's capabilities.

[CepaCepa]

NachyoChez, on 08 November 2012 - 10:53 PM, said:

Wouldn't you get more effect from a support-based warrior (Vigorous Shouts, Soldier's Runes), and then switching the Ele to be more DPS?  Seems that would increase both DPS (since healing warriors still do decent damage, and an ele can pack a PUNCH) and healing (burst healing from a shout warrior can exceed 300 Health per second if geared correctly [280 is EASILY achieved]), in addition to AoE CC removal, stun breaking, and condition sheering.

Admittedly, I've not done heavy research into the Ele's support abilities, but it would be hard pressed, imho, to exceed that build's capabilities.

Support staff ele give you constant regeneration, near constant protection, perma swiftness if you wish, and of course tons and tons of might stacks. They give an additional constant aoe health regen in the form of "soothing mist", an aoe direct heal for 3-4K + aoe condition removal every 10 seconds, a ground target aoe water field that heal for 4-6K with a very short CD, a big aoe regeneration + condition removal water field, a 3K aoe heal + condition removal everytime he dodges, and comboing with his own blast finishers/dodges/water field can do a spike of 12-15K direct healing to an ally within 1-2 seconds, and he can do so every 10-20 second. So far, support staff ele is the closest thing to a "healer" in this game, where he'd be able to choose who to heal, when to heal, and how much to heal for, and these combo heals can fill up a health pool very fast when needed.

Besides, out of that group comp, the one with the most dps potential is the mesmer, if someone is to be taken out of support role to gain damage, it should be the mesmer --- They're monsters when going full offensive, and sacrifices a LOT of damage by going support, but people generally don't realize that. Just imagine, 3 iWarlock each hitting for 10K every 5 second, and the mesmer himself easily doing more than 2K dps in Greatsword and full berserker --- All of that would be wasted if you'd like him to use up his phantasm slots and weapon for support, in which case even if he's in full berserker he'll still AT MOST mediocre damage...

Edited by CepaCepa, 09 November 2012 - 12:08 AM.

[NachyoChez]

CepaCepa, on 09 November 2012 - 12:01 AM, said:

Support staff ele give you constant regeneration, near constant protection, perma swiftness if you wish, and of course tons and tons of might stacks. They give an additional constant aoe health regen in the form of "soothing mist", an aoe direct heal for 3-4K + aoe condition removal every 10 seconds, a ground target aoe water field that heal for 4-6K with a very short CD, a big aoe regeneration + condition removal water field, a 3K aoe heal + condition removal everytime he dodges, and comboing with his own blast finishers/dodges/water field can do a spike of 12-15K direct healing to an ally within 1-2 seconds, and he can do so every 10-20 second. So far, support staff ele is the closest thing to a "healer" in this game, where he'd be able to choose who to heal, when to heal, and how much to heal for, and these combo heals can fill up a health pool very fast when needed.

Besides, out of that combo, the one with the most dps potential is the mesmer, if someone is to be taken out of support role to gain damage, it should be the mesmer --- They're monsters when going full offensive, but people generally don't realize that.

I guess I need to read more into Ele healing then :-p

[CepaCepa]

It's a support heavy group lol~ XD I like the sound of it, it looks like a very solid group, but I'd personally prefer more damage packed in there...

For a more offensive setup though, If it's up to me, I'll switch out the S/D ele for that thief that you've mentioned, since Staff support ele can keep up the might stacks pretty well too, especially when there's a thief ready to make use of all those fields with on-demand blast finishers. I'll switch the Guardian to Precision/Shout build (Sword/Focus + Scepter/Shield), where he'd be using lots of blind/aegis and critting a lot to give another 7-10 stacks of might to everyone, which should make up for the loss of S/D ele while gaining better damage overall in the group.

I'd switch the mesmer to full glass cannon --- It's just too much damage wasted if he goes support, having both a support ele and a support Guardian should already be enough. I'll take out IoL for mirror image/blink/decoy, because IoL pales in comparison to for example, the engineer rez circle or elementalist rez. Thief can do shadow refuge + rez which works amazingly in dungeons, and of course the support ele and support guardian, both built quite tough, can bring up any downed player while taking 1-2 hits (they can cast their immune/block skills WHILE rezzing).

And finally, I'll either switch the warrior out for a Grenadier engineer for extra aoe damage/rez circle, or a longbow ranger. 1500 range can be very useful sometimes, and underwater fights happen, hence bringing either a grenadier engineer or a ranger would cover those areas.

2 tough support characters who have tons of group-wide support should be enough, the other 3 can then focus primarily on damage while exerting the niche and strength at particular situations. A mesmer will have feedback, null field, as well as time warp no matter what build he's in, engineers are monsters under water and rez circle has such a short CD that it can be counted on every time someone is downed (which shouldn't be frequent, since there's the guardian and an ele), and thieves are thieves no matter the build. This way you've got 3 of the highest damage builds in the game doing damage, while 2 of the best support builds doing support.

This group can range, with the Guardian covering everyone up with shield 5 + wall of reflection, the mesmer using feedback on CD, and the engineering blinding the targets with grenade 3 + rifle crits. This group can also melee, with mesmer swapping to shatter build + sword, engineer doing grenade + rifle 3/5 combo, and elementalist going dagger/dagger (or simply staying in staff still for all the sweet combo fields). Or they can split up, with guardian and thief at the front, mesmer and engineer at the back, and the ele going back and forth in between for all the support needs. This group will be great in single target fights where the mesmer and thief would wreak havoc, and it'll also be great in aoe fights where the engineer and ele would destroy things. Everyone in this group can effectively rez others (mesmer least so, but still he can chaos storm + feedback + rez + 3 clone distortion. Ele can rez + Earth 3 + mist form + arcane shield, or simply use his rez skill. Engineer has circle. Guardian can rez + Focus 5 + retreat + virtue. Thief can shadow refuge + rez).

Edited by CepaCepa, 09 November 2012 - 12:45 AM.

[entropy3]

Thanks for all your feedback and general positivity. I posted this on the real forums and they told that the only viable option for running dungeons was 5 heavy classes.

Edited by entropy3, 09 November 2012 - 12:41 AM.

[entropy3]

CepaCepa, on 09 November 2012 - 12:22 AM, said:

It's a support heavy group lol~ XD I like the sound of it, it looks like a very solid group, but I'd personally prefer more damage packed in there...

For a more offensive setup though, If it's up to me, I'll switch out the S/D ele for that thief that you've mentioned, since Staff support ele can keep up the might stacks pretty well too. I'll switch the Guardian to Precision/Shout build, where he'd be using lots of blind/aegis and critting a lot to give another 7-10 stacks of might to everyone, which should make up for the loss of S/D ele while gaining better damage overall in the group.

I'd switch the mesmer to full glass cannon --- It's just to much damage wasted if he goes support, having both a support ele and a support Guardian should already be enough. IoL pales in comparison to for example, the engineer rez circle or elementalist rez. Thief can do shadow refuge + rez which works amazingly in dungeons, and of course the support ele and support guardian, both built quite tough, can bring up any downed player while taking 1-2 hits (they can cast their immune/block skills WHILE rezzing).

And finally, I'll either switch the warrior out for a Grenadier engineer for extra aoe damage/rez circle, or a longbow ranger. 1500 range can be very useful sometimes, and underwater fights happen, hence bringing either a grenadier engineer or a ranger would cover those areas.

2 tough support characters who have tons of group-wide support should be enough, the other 3 can then focus primarily on damage while exerting the niche and strength at particular situations. A mesmer will have feedback, null field, as well as time warp no matter what build he's in, engineers are monsters under water, and thieves are thieves no matter the build. This way you've got 3 of the highest damage builds in the game doing damage, while 2 of the best support builds doing support.

I like the ideas here. As for the mesmer, I run that build a lot since its my main, but you may have a point that a more dps speced mesmer in the group is more efficient use of the mesmer. I was however trying to make every build in the group somewhat durable, and I was afraid any full dps build (especially one without the inherit defences of a guard or war) would have the danger of being one shot by a bosses one shot skill. As a base line I was hoping that based on health and armor each class can withstand 2 hits of giganticus lupicus, since hes a well known hard hitting boss.

Could you maybe post the engineer build and ranger build you were talking about? I'd like to have an alternativ build for every class if possible

Again thanks for all the constructive feedback.

[CepaCepa]

entropy3, on 09 November 2012 - 12:41 AM, said:

I like the ideas here. As for the mesmer, I run that build a lot since its my main, but you may have a point that a more dps speced mesmer in the group is more efficient use of the mesmer. I was however trying to make every build in the group somewhat durable, and I was afraid any full dps build (especially one without the inherit defences of a guard or war) would have the danger of being one shot by a bosses one shot skill. As a base line I was hoping that based on health and armor each class can withstand 2 hits of giganticus lupicus, since hes a well known hard hitting boss.

Could you maybe post the engineer build and ranger build you were talking about? I'd like to have an alternativ build for every class if possible

Again thanks for all the constructive feedback.

Ahhh Giganticus, I've done it with my glass cannon mesmer as well as glass cannon engi --- It's a lot harder and unforgiving, but it's doable, you just have to remember to swap on more survival utilities (blink, and elixir S/R) and make good use of some skills such as mirror image + distortion, Sword #2, and phase retreat. But I do see your point, for that fight especially, it does make it easier if everyone in the group can hold their own. But think about it this way: Even if the mesmer/thief/engi/ranger died, the guardian and ele would go on living forever, such that the 3 other people can run back. It's probably not the ideal setup for Giganticus, but it'll make other fights a lot easier.

The engineer build that I was talking about is:

http://www.gw2db.com...80|21080|21080|

This is something that I'm using. This engineer should also keep 2 green or yellow pistols in his bag and be ready to switch those on if extra conditions are welcome in a fight (for example, if a boss cannot be meleed, the engineer should switch often to pistol to load up all kinds of conditions on the boss, such that mesmer iWarlock will hit like a truck), and be ready to switch major traits (For example, switch out swiftness-on-crit for rifle damage if he knows he'd either get into melee range in a fight or if the mob moves a lot, and consequently switch vigor-on-swiftness for 20% elixir reduction, furthermore if he's doing that, switch out healing turret for elixir heal). The vulnerability that this engineer can stack up means that the mesmer and thief in the group will be extra happy.

Ranger, well, any longbow rangers would do really. A standard 30 30 10 0 0 would work.

[Bloggi]

entropy3, on 09 November 2012 - 12:31 AM, said:

Thanks for all your feedback and general positivity. I posted this on the real forums and they told that the only viable option for running dungeons was 5 heavy classes.

That's a common problem...general close-mindedness and plain being unwilling to think outside the box. There should be plenty of viable options but only a question of what's the most effective, and that could change from dungeon to dungeon anyway.

[Gorgexpress]

To be fair, the best dungeon group probably IS just a combination of warriors and guardians.  Though i don't let that effect what classes i play or bring to dungeons. I'll do Arah with 5 rangers, i don't give a shit.

Anyways, feedback...

The big thing that comes to mind is gear. With all that support, you should have no problem going full berserker's/rampager's on everyone.

And maybe it's just me, but i find the hammer gets in the way of combo fields too much. I'd try to find another way to get good protection uptime and switch to a 20/25/0/20/5 greatsword build on the guardian. My elementalist is only 56 so i do not have experience with such builds.. but maybe a 20/10/10/30/0 elementalist could handle protection? Would help with the lack of fury in the group too.

[Luke86]

entropy3, on 09 November 2012 - 12:31 AM, said:

Thanks for all your feedback and general positivity. I posted this on the real forums and they told that the only viable option for running dungeons was 5 heavy classes.

It always depends on the situation, a 5 heavy classes party can just pewpew everything sometimes (Crucible path 1 anyone?)
I'm not saying its the only viable option though, we often bring an heavy condition based Ele or Necro for a single target damage against bosses, and a mesmer for his very useful mobility skills to skip things during dungeons.
Also thieves can help a lot with their aoe stealth, you cant just decide what's the best team in general without considering the single situation

PS: and I love my 30k+ 100b too much to change my warrior ^^

Edited by Luke86, 09 November 2012 - 12:43 PM.

[Nephele]

The official forums are terrible. People there think you should stack 100b warriors for DPS, and anything else isn't viable.

If I could choose I'd swap the warrior to a shout build (with greatsword instead of axe/horn), and swap the mesmer for your alternate venom share thief. Warrior horn isn't as good as you think with all the other support you've already got. Swapping to GS warrior and SB thief will net a fair DPS increase with little change in overall survivability. SB thieves allow AoE weakness spam so you can ball up mobs and AoE efficiently. Also if the thief brings a pistol offhand on swap they can AoE blind as well.

EDIT: Pistol offhand on thief is one of the most OP weapons when dealing with hard hitting trash. I can tank a nightmare knight in TA by myself indefinitely.

Edited by Nephele, 09 November 2012 - 01:28 PM.

[Aetou]

I've pugged both COE and Arah Explorables with all-Scholar groups (3-4 Eles, 1 Mesmer, 0-1 Necro) just fine.  In fact, the Eles made GL very easy indeed.  As others have mentioned, Eles are much better at support than Warriors although I dislike your particular setup and would much rather use my Support/Condition build (0/0/30/20/20) that mixes a LOT of condition damage in with sufficient heals and a load of boons.  S/D Elementalist for Might stacking SHOULD be entirely redundant - you have lots of fields going down and a Hammer/Staff Guardian should be able to do a couple of Blasts in Fire fields plus use Staff 4 to keep the group at 25 Might.  While I'd hesitate to put the Staff Ele in the gear you suggest I'd never put the second Ele in that gear too.

All in all, I think something simple like 1-2 Staff Support/Condition Eles, 1-2 Guardians (any solid builds, maybe 1 shout & 1 symbol), 1-3 rDPS (Ranger/Warrior/Mesmer/Thief) would do at least as well as your composition.  To be honest, if you have 3 Guardians/Eles who all know how to balance damage and support dynamically then anything that does damage in the last two slots will work more than fine.  Other classes can do support too, of course, but I think both Guardians and Elementalists handle heals/protection/condition removal/control better than their rivals (of course, if your Ele just spams fireballs and your Guardian just spams GS then your experience of the value of the class will be radically different.)

[FrancisCrawford]

On the elementalist forums, there's a lot of doubt as to whether the 3rd Monk & Water runes are worth it. Is 100 healing really better than what you can do with 2 other runes? And even if it is in some scenarios, can you expect somebody to gimp themselves for others by speccing that way?

Ditto the Cleric's gear, especially on the S/D elementalist.

You're also asking for a lot out of a single cast of Ring of Fire, given the various durations and casting times.

-- FC

[Strife025]

entropy3, on 09 November 2012 - 12:31 AM, said:

Thanks for all your feedback and general positivity. I posted this on the real forums and they told that the only viable option for running dungeons was 5 heavy classes.

I saw this thread immediately after you posted it, but decided to keep quiet. But no I didn't say it's the only viable option, I said it's the ideal option. There's a difference.

You can complete dungeons with all sorts of comps, it would be dumb to say only one group comp can do them.

But 2 guardian (1 hammer, 1 GS), 2 warrior (axe/mace, only noobs use GS in dungeons), 1 situational is ideal because they will clear faster and easier then any other comp. It's just the way PvE is balanced in favor of heavy, cleave attack, 100% shout uptime with near full dps gear giving you the ability to faceroll everything without dieing.

Also why would you ever waste an offhand on a warrior with warhorn in combat...

Edited by Strife025, 09 November 2012 - 04:22 PM.

[FrancisCrawford]

What is a "cleave attack"? Is it an important concept from another game that has a different name in this one?

-- FC

[entropy3]

Luke86, on 09 November 2012 - 12:42 PM, said:

It always depends on the situation, a 5 heavy classes party can just pewpew everything sometimes (Crucible path 1 anyone?)
I'm not saying its the only viable option though, we often bring an heavy condition based Ele or Necro for a single target damage against bosses, and a mesmer for his very useful mobility skills to skip things during dungeons.
Also thieves can help a lot with their aoe stealth, you cant just decide what's the best team in general without considering the single situation

PS: and I love my 30k+ 100b too much to change my warrior ^^

Totally agree! Having a bunch of different classes gives you a ton of options to deal with anything. And hey, straight up damage is important to a group and warriors are high up if not the best at that.

Nephele, on 09 November 2012 - 01:26 PM, said:

The official forums are terrible. People there think you should stack 100b warriors for DPS, and anything else isn't viable.

If I could choose I'd swap the warrior to a shout build (with greatsword instead of axe/horn), and swap the mesmer for your alternate venom share thief. Warrior horn isn't as good as you think with all the other support you've already got. Swapping to GS warrior and SB thief will net a fair DPS increase with little change in overall survivability. SB thieves allow AoE weakness spam so you can ball up mobs and AoE efficiently. Also if the thief brings a pistol offhand on swap they can AoE blind as well.

EDIT: Pistol offhand on thief is one of the most OP weapons when dealing with hard hitting trash. I can tank a nightmare knight in TA by myself indefinitely.

I see what you're saying and that would definitely increase DPS (what with the thief stacking high vuln and keeping them rooted for the war's HB), however I am worried that the loss of the current war and mesmer would lose a lot of flexability within the group. The war plays a very important role, in my mind at least, because of the AoE vigor he doles out. This is especially important for the Staff ele because it is one of the squishiest classes in the comp and it is the only class there that has a hard time getting vigor or other forms of increased endurance regen. Also, and I'm asking for your honest opinion here (not criticizing), do you think that the more offensive support of the VS thief is worth losing the mesmer's unique defensive support (best reflect in game, 8 sec AoE group cond cleanse and time warp in particular) and the amazing usefulness of Portal? I'm personally on the fence, but if I had to have a strong opinion on it I'd say that if you know the dungeon and the fights and stuff, pick the VS thief to make the run faster. But, if there are parts you want to skip in the dungeon or the dungeon is completely new to everyone, the mesmer is my choice just for the versatility it brings. What do you all think?

Aetou, on 09 November 2012 - 03:09 PM, said:

I've pugged both COE and Arah Explorables with all-Scholar groups (3-4 Eles, 1 Mesmer, 0-1 Necro) just fine.  In fact, the Eles made GL very easy indeed.  As others have mentioned, Eles are much better at support than Warriors although I dislike your particular setup and would much rather use my Support/Condition build (0/0/30/20/20) that mixes a LOT of condition damage in with sufficient heals and a load of boons.  S/D Elementalist for Might stacking SHOULD be entirely redundant - you have lots of fields going down and a Hammer/Staff Guardian should be able to do a couple of Blasts in Fire fields plus use Staff 4 to keep the group at 25 Might.  While I'd hesitate to put the Staff Ele in the gear you suggest I'd never put the second Ele in that gear too.

All in all, I think something simple like 1-2 Staff Support/Condition Eles, 1-2 Guardians (any solid builds, maybe 1 shout & 1 symbol), 1-3 rDPS (Ranger/Warrior/Mesmer/Thief) would do at least as well as your composition.  To be honest, if you have 3 Guardians/Eles who all know how to balance damage and support dynamically then anything that does damage in the last two slots will work more than fine.  Other classes can do support too, of course, but I think both Guardians and Elementalists handle heals/protection/condition removal/control better than their rivals (of course, if your Ele just spams fireballs and your Guardian just spams GS then your experience of the value of the class will be radically different.)

Oh I know the value of a good Guard and Ele, trust me . And thats a great point, I think I'll add a condition spec/support staff to the list of Alternate builds to replace either the S/D ele or the current Staff ele. Maybe the might stacking is a little overboard, but I was assuming that during a fight things wouldn't go perfect and might upkeep wouldn't be ideal, so having multiple sources of it would help keep it as high as possible during the fight.

Also, my reasoning behind the power spec for the eles is because, imo, they are the best class for destroying object quickly. If they were condition specced I was worried that if the group was faced with a object destroying path in a dungeon (AC 1 and 3, for example) the group would have a harder time with it.

FrancisCrawford, on 09 November 2012 - 03:41 PM, said:

On the elementalist forums, there's a lot of doubt as to whether the 3rd Monk & Water runes are worth it. Is 100 healing really better than what you can do with 2 other runes? And even if it is in some scenarios, can you expect somebody to gimp themselves for others by speccing that way?

Ditto the Cleric's gear, especially on the S/D elementalist.

You're also asking for a lot out of a single cast of Ring of Fire, given the various durations and casting times.

-- FC

You can take 1 of each rune out and put in whatever you want, thats just what I role with. Major monk is another good option.

About the Ring of Fire, I have 30% longer fire fields traited as the Grandmaster Major trait so its very possible to get the combo off in my experience.

FrancisCrawford, on 09 November 2012 - 04:29 PM, said:

What is a "cleave attack"? Is it an important concept from another game that has a different name in this one?

-- FC

A cleave attack is a melee attack that hits multiple enemies at a time near your target.

[Strife025]

FrancisCrawford, on 09 November 2012 - 04:29 PM, said:

What is a "cleave attack"? Is it an important concept from another game that has a different name in this one?

-- FC

Most melee weapons hit multiple enemies in a ~150-180 degree area in front of them without any reduction in damage. So running 2 guardians and 2 warriors means pretty much every single attack is going to hit everyone for full damage.

If you take ranged classes, say like a necro or ranger or ele, only a portion of their attacks will hit all enemies, and many times it's for less damage because melee weapons are balanced to do more base damage in most cases because you are at risk in melee range. The other downside to condition damage currently is that it's not affected by crit. So you lose out on a ton of damage potential in dungeons, especially when you are getting things like near 100% fury uptime and precision/crit damage banner from warrior. A 4 or 5 melee heavy class has naturally more defense from heavy armor, are in close proximity so they get full uptime of both offensive and defensive boons, and have the maximum damage potential.

This allows you to basically clear dungeons as fast as possible with as little risk as possible. I'm not sure what other people think "ideal" means, but to me it means the group comp that clears dungeons as quickly and easily as possible.

Some examples of real world footage of how easily and quickly this comp clears dungeons, including the new SE on first try which can easily be improved upon now that I know a couple of dynamics from running it once:

SE:
Path 1 (21:01): http://www.youtube.c...h?v=QWbjBOIKn_E
Path 3 (11:35): http://www.youtube.c...h?v=95vVeG1H7tw

CoF:
Path 1 (8:21): http://www.youtube.c...h?v=w6D4l3pGrvQ
Path 2 (14:45): http://www.youtube.c...h?v=WZFmXQaeJ3I
Path 3 (18:32): http://www.youtube.c...h?v=ssIE8w2JJeQ

We have used this group to clear every dungeon with very little trouble and almost every path is under 20-30 minutes, my main video card was down for 2 weeks so I am in the process of re-taking footage of everything. Full melee groups make things like CoE even easier because if you stack on Alpha in all 3 paths he becomes ridiculously simple. It lets you do things like the CoE Golem Hacking event in only 2 waves, it lets you easily clear dps checks in a variety of dungeons as well.

The comp in the OP doesn't even have any berserker gear on any class, good luck clearing any of the dps checks without kiting, zerging, or down right failing. Plus you have the #1 multiple target dps class in the game (warrior) using a warhorn on offhand not using a banner which increases dps for your entire party, you have 2 traits wasted for adrenaline (at most you only ever need 1 adrenaline trait, the best being 30 in discipline), and a major trait wasted on rifle cooldowns which is a terrible weapon for dungeons. I only have an 80 warrior, guardian, and necro so can't comment on the other builds, but the warrior build is terrible and the guardian build is decent overall but needs some tweaks to gear, skills, traits (i.e. stand your ground is infinitely more useful for both yourself and your group compared to a signet, replace a symbol trait with 20% shout reduction, especially with an AH build and posting a party comp that has 3 people outside of melee range, and power/tough/vit set will give you way more survivabilty and damage then a cleric set, especially when again, 3 of the 5 comp you posted isn't in melee range and you aren't even the main group healer, the eles are, why would you ever wear gear based on the weakest stat in the game) and using hammer, not mace/shield.

You should probably run all dungeons before making ideal comps which aren't close to ideal, even if you didn't run a heavy based comp some of those builds don't make much sense. And believe me, I've been through it. My first 80 was a necro, the 2nd guardian in my groups first 80 was a engi, one of the warriors in my dedicated had an 80 ele as their first class, the other warrior/guardian had an 80 warrior first but it was GS. We have experienced, used multiple builds, and leveled multiple classes until we realized how easy certain classes make dungeons; but after you have over 7k tokens in the bank, a guardian in full hotw gear with one of every weapon from a dungeon, and a warrior in half cof/half SE with almost one of every weapon from a dungeon including underwater weapons, it becomes painfully obviously what gets you through all dungeons quickly and easily.

If you had actual experience or videos proving how good your comp was, I could believe you. But as someone who has run dungeons every night for 2-3 hours for the past 6 weeks it's quite obvious that it's not. I do think it's quite funny that your 'pros' include both extreme spiking capability and high dps making it obvious you've never actually been in a high dps or spike party comp. If you want examples of spiking, my axe/mace + longbow warrior has 82% crit chance with 94% after 25 stacks of precision, hits auto attacks for 2-3k on crit which cleave all enemies in front of him, eviscerate every 10 seconds for 12k, and provides the entire group damage through might, fury, banner, and full 8 stack vulnerability uptime. When you throw a second axe/mace warrior in, you basically get double everything above except the banner, which instead gives you 10% boon duration. Eat an omnomberry pie or ghost which gives 300+ healing per crit 66% of the time with no cooldown and you have better survivability then any trait will give you. Food is the key, something like andrenal health gives you 360 health per 3 seconds at level 3, in those same 3 seconds I'll  heal ~1k just by eating food. It allows you do go dps with survivability and longbow provides both better damage and a quick way to build health compared to rifle.

Wasting an offhand for vigor is dumb. Guardians will have 100% vigor uptime from vigourous precision, warriors have a way to get a dodge every 5 seconds with a 20-0-0-20-30 build on top of their normal endurance gain. You are giving up so much by using something for 10 seconds of vigor which you aren't even going to be using most of the time.

Yes I'm bored at work, and yes that was a *ing long post.

Edited by Strife025, 10 November 2012 - 10:24 PM.

[CepaCepa]

Strife025, on 09 November 2012 - 04:20 PM, said:

I saw this thread immediately after you posted it, but decided to keep quiet. But no I didn't say it's the only viable option, I said it's the ideal option. There's a difference.

You can complete dungeons with all sorts of comps, it would be dumb to say only one group comp can do them.

But 2 guardian (1 hammer, 1 GS), 2 warrior (axe/mace, only noobs use GS in dungeons), 1 situational is ideal because they will clear faster and easier then any other comp. It's just the way PvE is balanced in favor of heavy, cleave attack, 100% shout uptime with near full dps gear giving you the ability to faceroll everything without dieing.

Also why would you ever waste an offhand on a warrior with warhorn in combat...

Cleave is a good point, and indeed everyone gets max benefit from all the shouts/group support when they're all melee (or all ranged, but that's probably going to be very rare). However, I'd like to comment on the "maximum damage output" part of things.

Warriors are NOT the highest single target dps, that would belong to pistol whip berserker thieves and phantasm/shatter berserker mesmers by quite a large margin. For aoe, due to cleaves any melee heavy hitter would be good at it, which means: pistol whip thieves (Sword mainhand) and shatter Sword mesmers can cleave just as well. So if it is "damage" that you're looking for, throwing in a thief or mesmer just can't hurt. Not to mention time warp + null field + feedback that will help your whole group in more ways than one.

Now for aoe, cleaves (unless otherwise stated in tooltip) have a maximum target number of 3. Which means that when you have more than 3 targets in front of any of the melee characters, your skills will only hit 3 of them. Most of the other aoe spells (ground target aoe for example) can hit a maximum of five. This means that: if there is less than or equal to 3 targets that you're fighting, a berserker warrior's dps will be similar to a rifle/grenade berserker engineer. If there is more than 3 targets that you're fighting, then the engineer will out damage the warrior in aoe by quite a bit. Due to the nature of grenades (3 grenades on each throw) it can hit up to 15 targets at once and stack bleed/vulnerability/burn on each of them, you really can't get better than this for consistent aoe. There is no reason for the engineer to HAVE to stand at 1500 range if you'd like to have every one in melee, he'd just have to move to melee... In fact, that's the ideal place for him to be, because at melee range he can now fully utilize rifle #3 and #5 on CD in between grenades to do maximum damage.

As for the guardian's damage... Well. When #1 on several weapon is the hardest hitting skill for that weapon, we get an idea of the damage potential of the profession.

No doubt a full melee group would be a viable choice, especially if the people in the group have thought about group composition beforehand. However, I've seen and been to many groups, some pug and some guildies, that speed through dungeons in 40-45 minutes (all 3 path). I've ran AC all 3 path in slightly over half an hour. I think the trick always lies in the balance between survival and damage --- If you get five good guardians into a group, they'll simply never wipe. Ever. But they won't clear as fast as they'd perhaps want to. Throw in some glass cannon bursts, chances are, they'll still not wipe, ever. But now things go much faster. So it's really just finding that balance, and I'm saying that with a full melee group, you can certainly make use of some of these glass cannons since they'd be well protected by those heavy armors anyways.

And again, time warp, 'nough said.

[Strife025]

CepaCepa, on 09 November 2012 - 07:31 PM, said:

quoted text

Main issue with thieves is their low health base pool, medium armor, and their lack of party wide damage buffs. I'm talking about what warriors contribute to a party as a whole while keeping survivability and damage as well, thieves lack the same survivability as warriors, if you need to use stealths and evades it means you have less dps uptime. The benefit of 10 sec of fury every 25 sec, 100%+ uptime on 3 stacks of might, and a banner on party dps is huge, and that's all while going full dps uptime and not a support class.

Also I didn't say warriors are the best SINGLE target dps class in the game, I do think they provide the best overall sustained dps in dungeons while contributing group damage as well.

Obviously guardians aren't for the best damage either, the reason for 2 guardians is obviously 100% protection uptime, huge survivability, group condition removal without needing to use skills that take away from dps time since shouts are instant, and the fact that they can do that with berserker/knights which still provides excellent damage for how well they tank and provide survivability for the group.

I know I didn't specifically state it in this thread, but notice I talk about 2guard/2war alot, with a 5 situational, which would be a mesmer, ele, thf, or 3rd warrior. If you actually opened the speed run videos I posted of my group, you would notice we were running 1 mesmer as the 5th slot. We run with 1 ele often as well, and a venom share thf is good for Arah path 4 for stupid Simin. So yes, I already agree with your comments on mesmer because as shown, we already use one.

And yes, we speed run through AC almost daily as well simply because a 12 min. run per path gives you 45 silver + drops + tokens, so I'm well aware of how quickly and easily it can be run, it is literally the easiest dungeon in the game which is why you can clear it under 15 min with 3 people...

Of course there are some other comps that can run dungeons quickly, and what I posted is probably not the only one, but they are no where near what the OP posted. And again, I would love to see more glass cannon non-heavy classes clear stuff like the new SE1, the extra armor and health pool (or healing/boons in the guardians case) of heavy classes currently give you a distinct advantage in dungeons in the current meta and the fact that both heavy classes have offensive or defensive shouts which offer huge benefits for the group with 0 cast time.

Edited by Strife025, 10 November 2012 - 02:04 AM.

[CepaCepa]

Strife025, on 10 November 2012 - 01:03 AM, said:

Main issue with thieves is their low health base pool, medium armor, and their lack of party wide damage buffs. I'm talking about what warriors contribute to a party as a whole while keeping survivability and damage as well, thieves lack the same survivability as warriors, if you need to use stealths and evades it means you have less dps uptime. The benefit of 10 sec of fury every 25 sec, 100%+ uptime on 3 stacks of might, and a banner on party dps is huge, and that's all while going full dps uptime and not a support class.

Also I didn't say warriors are the best SINGLE target dps class in the game, I do think they provide the best overall sustained dps in dungeons while contributing group damage as well.

Obviously guardians aren't for the best damage either, the reason for 2 guardians is obviously 100% protection uptime, huge survivability, group condition removal without needing to use skills that take away from dps time since shouts are instant, and the fact that they can do that with berserker/knights which still provides excellent damage for how well they tank and provide survivability for the group.

I know I didn't specifically state it in this thread, but notice I talk about 2guard/2war alot, with a 5 situational, which would be a mesmer, ele, thf, or 3rd warrior. If you actually opened the speed run videos I posted of my group, you would notice we were running 1 mesmer as the 5th slot. We run with 1 ele often as well, and a venom share thf is good for Arah path 4 for stupid Simin. So yes, I already agree with your comments on mesmer because as shown, we already use one.

And yes, we speed run through AC almost daily as well simply because a 12 min. run per path gives you 45 silver + drops + tokens, so I'm well aware of how quickly and easily it can be run, it is literally the easiest dungeon in the game which is why you can clear it under 15 min with 3 people...

Of course there are some other comps that can run dungeons quickly, and what I posted is probably not the only one, but they are no where near what the OP posted. And again, I would love to see more glass cannon non-heavy classes clear stuff like the new SE1, the extra armor and health pool (or healing/boons in the guardians case) of heavy classes currently give you a distinct advantage in dungeons in the current meta and the fact that both heavy classes have offensive or defensive shouts which offer huge benefits for the group with 0 cast time.

I recognize that soldier professions have some very good synergy with each other both offensively or defensively, however for any dungeon group, I'd say the "Optimal" setup is when the defence is "just enough" and the offence is maximized. If a thief is killing a mob, the "optimal" setup is to have the mob die as fast as it can WHILE the thief is barely alive at the end of the combat. For a group, this means highest possible damage as long as you can make it through the dungeon (where highest possible damage takes into consideration of down time and all these jazz). So basically if your group can already have 25 stacks of might and very good fury uptime, AND that no one in your group is either dying or sacrificing dps for the sake of staying alive, then any extra defence/support in this situation would be wasted and the only thing to be maximized here would be damage.

This is to say, if a guardian + elementalist is already able to keep up 25 stacks of might, lots of fury, AND keep everyone from dying, then those 3 other people in the group can maximize their damage. And if you're maximizing damage already, then you'd perhaps want to look into cross-profession damage boosts (for example, conditions on mobs make mesmer/necro hit a lot harder).

I do see your point though, as I've mentioned before. 5 soldier group is a very strong composition due to the reasons that you've listed, but I won't say that it is "optimal", only because I still think you probably have too much defence in that setup which would be wasted in many dungeons (30K health pool is wasted if the mob doesn't hit you at all). It does have that "oomph" due to the simplicity and of the concept (and here I mean simplicity as a form of beauty, not the typical simple/easy), it's a very "clean" idea. But like you've pointed out, adding a mesmer and elementalist can already show to have an advantage in many cases. I think cross-profession damage boosts still have an important role to play, for example glass cannon mesmer + condition toughness necro + grenadier engineer, or elementalist + thief (combo field + blast finisher). Just saying that there must be some other very good group comp out there, that's all.

[Blixcoe]

lol nothing on the ranger profession. ty
nice post though

[Strife025]

CepaCepa, on 10 November 2012 - 11:51 PM, said:

I recognize that soldier professions have some very good synergy with each other both offensively or defensively, however for any dungeon group, I'd say the "Optimal" setup is when the defence is "just enough" and the offence is maximized. If a thief is killing a mob, the "optimal" setup is to have the mob die as fast as it can WHILE the thief is barely alive at the end of the combat. For a group, this means highest possible damage as long as you can make it through the dungeon (where highest possible damage takes into consideration of down time and all these jazz). So basically if your group can already have 25 stacks of might and very good fury uptime, AND that no one in your group is either dying or sacrificing dps for the sake of staying alive, then any extra defence/support in this situation would be wasted and the only thing to be maximized here would be damage.

This is to say, if a guardian + elementalist is already able to keep up 25 stacks of might, lots of fury, AND keep everyone from dying, then those 3 other people in the group can maximize their damage. And if you're maximizing damage already, then you'd perhaps want to look into cross-profession damage boosts (for example, conditions on mobs make mesmer/necro hit a lot harder).

I do see your point though, as I've mentioned before. 5 soldier group is a very strong composition due to the reasons that you've listed, but I won't say that it is "optimal", only because I still think you probably have too much defence in that setup which would be wasted in many dungeons (30K health pool is wasted if the mob doesn't hit you at all). It does have that "oomph" due to the simplicity and of the concept (and here I mean simplicity as a form of beauty, not the typical simple/easy), it's a very "clean" idea. But like you've pointed out, adding a mesmer and elementalist can already show to have an advantage in many cases. I think cross-profession damage boosts still have an important role to play, for example glass cannon mesmer + condition toughness necro + grenadier engineer, or elementalist + thief (combo field + blast finisher). Just saying that there must be some other very good group comp out there, that's all.

I agree that there are other comps that can kill extremely fast as well, main issue is I haven't really seen any videos of them. The only speed run videos I've seen are comps similar to mine.

But I am interested in seeing runs from other comp. groups, I just know what my group runs and have never seen any videos posted that were much faster. For reference, this is my current post on GW2 forums, I should have almost every path up by next week, as noted, things like AC and HotW are a month old and will be updated with new times. Things like CoF, SE (although we did path 1 in 15 min last night which will be uploaded soon), CM are recent. We did TA up, f/f in 13 min last night, and f/u in 15 min as well.

If you have an exact group comp you can think of that can be used for all dungeons I'm open to hear it. Obviously getting rid of a guardian for extremely easy paths like AC or CoF 1 for a dps class will make things go a bit faster, but I'm talking about a comp. that can breeze through every single path of every single dungeon.

AC (plan on re-recording since it can be done much faster, idle time due to pubs in these old vids):
Shared Section (4:13): http://www.youtube.c...h?v=zhdyaHbSarY
Path 1 (8:52): http://www.youtube.c...h?v=OfBR8d5IZuU
Path 2 (14:40): http://www.youtube.c...h?v=3_gAb5tjRy0
Path 3 (11:05): http://www.youtube.c...h?v=o_48A5Xhhrk
CM:
Path 1 (14:10): http://www.youtube.c...h?v=AoWhasHltgM
Path 2 (19:20): http://www.youtube.c...h?v=RduRSTCyXwc
Path 3 (13:00): http://www.youtube.c...h?v=NDRJg5OJJAE
TA:
Shared Path (2:40): http://www.youtube.c...h?v=dTOqCI1UksY
Up (10:51): http://www.youtube.c...h?v=W1tHVvxVPxY
F/F: pending
F/U (14:53): http://www.youtube.c...h?v=yFSlvYcONg4
SE:
Path 1 (14:21): http://www.youtube.c...h?v=g1Zw5vvFuDk
Path 2: No plans to do again atm
Path 3 (11:35): http://www.youtube.c...h?v=95vVeG1H7tw
CoE (3 (or 2) wasn’t a clean run so need to re-record):
Shared Path (3:00): http://www.youtube.c...h?v=xAvPztv-y84
Path 1 (16:28): http://www.youtube.c...h?v=oFtrZc9671M
Path 2 (21:30): http://www.youtube.c...h?v=GDNhZqBaxO0
Path 3:
CoF:
Path 1 (8:21): http://www.youtube.c...h?v=w6D4l3pGrvQ
Path 2 (14:45): http://www.youtube.c...h?v=WZFmXQaeJ3I
Path 3 (18:32): http://www.youtube.c...h?v=ssIE8w2JJeQ
HotW (re-record coming, including trick to path 3+2):
Path 1 War (11:30): http://www.youtube.c...h?v=ZbVrOVAZg_0
Path 2:
Path 3 (27:37): http://www.youtube.c...h?v=Ya_sePwSeBk

Edited by Strife025, 16 November 2012 - 06:02 PM.

[Dream Proxy]

i'm glad you posted your fastest times.  now i'm motivated to try and beat them >:]

Edited by xxalucard, 12 November 2012 - 09:04 PM.

[Alaroxr]

It's going to depend on what dungeon, which run, and the tactics you employ.

[Veurr]

Can you post your builds Strife025?

[Dahk]

Strife025, on 09 November 2012 - 05:44 PM, said:

Most melee weapons hit multiple enemies in a ~150-180 degree area in front of them without any reduction in damage. So running 2 guardians and 2 warriors means pretty much every single attack is going to hit everyone for full damage.

If you take ranged classes, say like a necro or ranger or ele, only a portion of their attacks will hit all enemies, and many times it's for less damage because melee weapons are balanced to do more base damage in most cases because you are at risk in melee range. The other downside to condition damage currently is that it's not affected by crit....

Idk about necros, but piercing arrows has become a staple of any bow build for a ranger, which allows them to do full damage to anyone in the path of the arrow.  This potentially allows a ranger to deal more damage with an auto attack than a cleaving melee player.  Of course, a ranger can bring additional AoE by running with traps too.  This makes any variation of a 20 marks, 30 skirmishing build optimal for a ranger using a bow in a dungeon.

Edited by Dahk, 20 November 2012 - 03:33 AM.

[Minion]

Composition for dungeons is as follows:

DPS warrior
DPS backstab thief
Might stacking guardian
Fear and Weakness inducing Necromancer.

No more really needs to be said other than play well, dodge when you can, heal when your health gets low and use stun breakers when those options aren't options.

[Dayne]

@dahk i must be the only ranger who dislikes the whole marksmanship tree, i like wildernes survival 100% more. the other issue i have is that piercing arrows is not consistent for me, like, if i'm an inch above my target, it seems to just fire the arrows into the ground instead of the monster behind it. also, this trait doesn't help the fact that we'll still do maybe 60% of the damage a warrior does, and our pet will still be only hitting 1 enemy.

i also feel like most classes can bring superior damage to a group while providing more utility at the same time. all a ranger does is a water field or ice field. there are spirits, but i don't think they're worth a utility slot.

so, ranger doesn't fit into the meta for dungeons right now because we bring inferior damage and inferior support when compared to the other professions.