Kahlan.7249

Alright, thank you guys! I guess I'll wait then, since the stuff I want is not urgent anyway.

Hi, I'm wondering if Black Lion Chest Exclusive items (like the Wild magic backpack, and Elemental sword) ever rotate back to the black lion statuette vendor? (aka become buyable for 60 statuettes.)

Am considering either buying a couple of the Black Lion Exclusive chests now that they're out, or waiting for them to come back (*if they ever do).

Mmhmm if you use LFG and PUG a lot, server culture does matter (or if you run around in open world)

It actually sounds like a difficult choice on your part (and same, I feel ya :/) cuz NA is a lot more friendly -- people are more up for chitchat and conversation than EU, but EU does care more about what's meta.

[Edited]

I didn't mean to create any bad vibes with this :/ I just wanted a place to discuss something related to the game, and to talk to people.

*ducks head out and pretends I don't exist*

Redacted

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I would love this feature too ^_^

Yeah, a full zerker's weaver depends entirely on the group for boons and heals and stuff.

You're definitely not the only one who has a bad experience w/ playing zerker's weaver while pugging lower tier fractals.

You do get better from pugging the hellish lower tier fractals with bad instabs, and learn how to dodge and what not to step in (and then forget to once you start doing T4s with a healer around...).

**Fractal defensive potion**

If you're not already, get the defensive potion for fights that have a lot of "stray damage" that can't be avoided, or bad instabilities. For example, places I'd definitely take it to are T3 Twilight Oasis without heals, T3 Swampland without heals, T3 Deepstone without heals, etc.

**CC the boss with consumables**

You can mitigate a lot of the boss's damage by CCing the boss using consumables.

https://discretize.eu/guides/consumables

(under "crowd control" section)

These are very popular among Fractal CMs, and honestly I'd recommend them even if you aren't going into them - especially if you continue to play weaver..

As the squishiest person, you stand with the most to lose if the boss continually attacks, and as well due to the nature of weaver, you also lose a lot of DPS from using your own CC skills/being stuck in air & earth after the bar breaks.

I started using them when I got into T3 fracs, and I thought they seemed "extra" at first, but I would HIGHLY, highly recommend them. ^__^ Minimize your inventory + move it in the top-right corner, bind it to an easy keybind, and get used to clicking the item & then pressing skill 1 or whatever you use to CC with it.

**Other random defensive potions (takes up the "utility" slot/superior sharpening stone)**

(read "mob-specific enhancements" under the dT consumables section)

There are lots of utilities that help with survivability - I got these when I first started pugging T3 fracs. Personally, I would recommend ignoring some of the them, since you don't need them that badly and they're just unnecessary inventory clutter.

These are the ones that I would recommend (these are all super cheap):

* Powerful Potion of **Dredge** Slaying for _Underground Facility_ (nice for standing on the buttons and just the mobs in general)

* Powerful Potion of **Outlaw** Slaying for _Cliffside_ (final fight of cliffside can be nasty with bad instabs, especially if one member of your group is running around making it hard for the healer, and if nobody is pulling in the mobs)

* Powerful Potion of **Elemental** Slaying for _Underground Facility_ (the ice elemental final boss is really nasty. also honestly for that ice elemental fight, if you're just getting used to it, take twist of fate for stunbreaks instead of arcane blast - it's worth it. also prepare to CC the boss with a consumable right before the bar goes up again to mitigate the attack, it helps both you + the group a lot)

* Powerful Potion of **Slaying Scarlet's Armies** for _Captain Mai Trin Boss, Molten Boss, Molten Furnace, and @Arkk in Shattered Observatory._

* Powerful Potion of **Sons of Svanir Slaying** for _Snowblind_ (there's a lot of random damage in the last boss fight, T3 snowblind/T4 is pretty deadly for a weaver, especially a weaver who can't dodge (or if you're me, runs around randomly in all the agony-inducing aoe's during the split phases). Also CCing the boss really helps here too, since you can stop one of his nasty spinny sword attacks if timed right)

**Other random tips for pugging with random group comps**

If you need an extra dodge as weaver, feel free to stay in Air 5 and use that for an evade. I like using this in Ensolyss in 99cm since I find sometimes I need three dodges, and my energy bar doesn't quite refill fast enough for that.

If you're fighting mobs in random groups, feel free to honestly play a little "pvp-style" even if you're currently in zerker's gear. Dip into earth for the evade in earth 2. Use the aoe cc of earth 4 against mobs.

To be more self-sustaining in deeps when you are pugging T3 fractals, or any place where you're noticing that you aren't getting a lotta might, take Fire 1-3-**2** instead of the meta Fire 1-3-1. "Pyromancer's Pussiance" provides a lot of free might, and giving up the longer fire fields is only a minor DPS loss.

Get into the habit of "letting other people tank for you" - personally, I've picked up the habit of never being the person to rush in first in front of mobs.

Always make sure the healer (if there is one) is running beside/in front of you, or make sure (if there's no healer) there are multiple people running in front of you. Especially in T3 fractals. Like seriously, just let the dude with his movement signet and WvW gear take the damage from the mobs while you slowly run in last and uhh, earth 2 evade. LOL.

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**bUT yeAH thE beST guIDE TO eLE is TO deleTe yoUR ele And mAke rAngER or gUARdiAN iNSTeaD**

ele feels fine in reg t4s if there's a healer tho, esp healbrand. if you really like the class though, you can tough it out til there and it's not bad, but it's not worth it unless u really like the class : D

Not sure if I worded the best way, but I am curious about what everybody does

So far I've been pretty much leaving things the same throughout all runs. But I'm thinking that it might be helpful sometimes and worth it for me to change things round up a bit depending on the nature of the fight. Like if it's a fight with many adds or a fight with literally just a single target, or if I'm playing healer vs DPS vs boon support, or depending on the goal of the run (like "we all make mistakes" training run, versus "lemme tryhard in this speed clear!")

So yeah, do you change your ArcDPS settings now and then to display different things on the screen?

And if so, what things can you glance at quickly during a run itself? Am not taking about logs analyzed after a run, but during the run itself it happening on your screen

images, links to examples, or words description are fine ^_^

Awh yeah, it really does help when there's a more experienced player in the group. I don't think it's a big problem, since in my experience (pugging T1-3 Fracs in early 2019 NA) 9 times outta 10, there almost always is a leader who knows a little bit more than the other people.

> @"Game of Bones.8975" said:

> Take any random Initiate level Fractal and five players who haven't heard anything about how to defeat it and what are the chances they will be successful?

>

> I've been more active on that scene recently and playing "follow-the-leader."

>

> How do a group of noobs learn when the trial-and-error usually ends in error and frustration?

For me at least, it felt like a gentle enough learning slope.

And a lotta times the trial-and-error did lead to error, but not frustration. ^_^

But that's just me personally, and the way I like to learn in this game. It was pretty fun way to learn "experiencing it by yourself" (without just watching one billion videos or memorizing what's on guides). It's easy to tell who to follow, and then eventually, you kind of just know where to go and see _"Hey, so this is a cool skip"_ and learn stuff along the way.

But yeah, sometimes the encounter goes very, very painful if no one knows what they're doing, and if that's not your style, and you're genuinely getting frustrated, it's time to call it quits hehe.

I have not noticed any differences in fractal pugs on weekends vs weekdays

But yeah that sucks :(

Honestly now that we're on the topic of it, I find the kp discussion (verifying ~truth~ and whatever's a proxy for skill/performance in this game) to be very interesting.

Sometimes I ask players who I see repeated high performance from how much kp they have, and I'm usually shocked to find that the number was actually really high. I get a lot of replies like _"Uhh lemme check, I sold a stack and I have one stack in the bank rn and okay, gw2efficiency says i have 54 on my ren, 93 on my BS..."_

And then I do the calculations and this person has accumulated like over 600kp.

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Hehe maybe it's obvious but just because a group is "50kp" or whatever, doesn't mean the people who made the group/all the players in it actually have that amount on average. I know my friend who has like 800+kp and invites people who I know also have a lot (like at least 300kp), and she makes "50kp" or "100kp" groups just so they fill faster.

I know this isn't the case you're talking about, but I do wonder if sometimes someone joins and thinks _"Wow this 50kp group was so good!! 50kp is better than 250kp!!!"_ but the group was actually made up of people who say, had 500kp on average LOL.

If you're returning from 6 years & wanna get into instanced PVE, I'd honestly recommend learning **dragonhunter** or **power soulbeast** ^__^

As for what I can speak about:

**Fractal CMs** - Power weaver is fine. In lower kp groups you can ease into surviving while playing it with the Healbrand/Alacren meta, and if you wanna get into higher kp groups, it's an accepted & recognized dps class.

Like for real, after playing weaver everywhere, this stands as the one actual place that I actually really like playing my weaver. The precasting at the mistlock is just really fun. :P

_And you just know, the boon support or BS or other dps or whoever picked up your fiery greatsword, they look at you and think "YES! There's a weaver in the group! I get more deeps for my opener!" the same way I look at a guardian and think "Yes, they're gonna pull the snakes in 99cm!"_

Of course there are other classes that are great too, so it's not like "this is the be-all and end-all", it's just a good option among many good options (some of the others being power soulbeast, dragonhunter, and holosmith).

**Regular T4s** - Errr, weaver is a bit painful. Would not recommend. Or at the very least, I'd recommend having a second class to swap to, for those pesky mob-filled, bad-instab T4 fractals. Like honestly, guardian is just so much better for those.

Personally, I stay weaver if the fractal seems rather benign (like chaos, aetherblade, thauma), but if it's cancerous (like siren's, volcanic/_the final fight feels really bad as power weaver_, twilight/_the first phase feels bad as power weaver_) I switch to something else, like condi firebrand.

But yeah, this would be a non-issue if I did CMs as something like dragonhunter .___. or idk, holo

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guardian also provides an insane amount of utility, it can do more skips than ele, it can bring reflects, it can bring stab, it can bring pulls

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i don't know much about power soulbeast, other than people like your little spirits, people like having you around, and also i rarely hear anyone complain about spending so much time on their ranger or maining ranger. also in speedrun raids, you tend to see a lotta green bars (soulbeasts) along with blue bars (dragonhunters). soulbeast seems good. better than weaver, prolly.

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i don't know much about holo, except there's always that one guy who mains holo and can do everything as holo and is known as "the holo guy"

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i cannot speak much for raids, except that i would **highly recommend against learning them on power weaver.** i speak from personal experience. :pensive:

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condi weaver is a curiosity for me

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tempest is irrelevant in instanced pve

Not really sure where to put this.

I'm pretty curious about what the actual population difference is, as I know it's generally accepted that "NA is ded" (and yeah, for raid & fractal LFG/instanced PVE content, it definitely feels this way since transferring to EU).

Are there any stats floating around somewhere?

yeah it's a drag and honestly feels like doing a heart quest in bloodtide coast LOL, it's that kind of mind-numbingly boring pewpew

no way people can defend content like this as good

well i think it's good that people are specific in LFG and state what constitutes as enough X tokens for them

cuz some people are afraid of asking or w/e and the requirement lists in lfg usually aren't super high or anything

and agreed yeah of course it's arbitrary, and it can be super slow to get raid for the in-between stage of "knows mechanics, has gotten a few kills, maybe not enough kp" if you dont fake it

but yeah i think it's good a system where there is kp requirement exists and also a way to circumvent around it (codes)

wow ScIEnce :P truly remarkable

i meaan, depends what you consider "get into raiding"

is getting one VG kill = get into raiding? if so then you could conclude, it's not that hard

but you do have to look and be willing to use resources since i mean, you do need to find 9 other people + have some of them fill specialized roles + have some of them know mechanics already. basically, for your first kill you'll definitely need to be carried, and *you need to find people to do the carrying.*

and maybe it's not that hard for most people, but for some others, imo the gate is being willing to ask or knowing where to look for help (LFG, RA in discord, training guilds etc) more than anything else.

you knew where to look for help (in this case, LFG as one avenue) and that meant you already had the hardest part covered imo haha.

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I.

PERSONAL ANECDOTE - totally not science either, but, maybe something most people don't think about? since i rarely see this kind of thing mentioned here. and my friend and i who i am going to talk about are mostly likely _far_ outliers, but i do feel like there is an unspoken minority like this. i wish there was a "read more" thing on this forum, because this is going to honestly be quite obnoxious and long and it also doesn't prove anything because not science either lol.

in my experience, it's something that's quite difficult to get the snowball rolling in - the initial step/first raid opportunity, and after that it gets so much easier, especially if (and once) you *actually know people who are already into raiding*. i hate this word because it's not really *CONNECTIONS* connections, it's frans, but it's the best word i can think of in this context.

using an example, also fair warning, this is gonna sound like "LMAO wow so this bitch decides to write her autobiography, which is NOT SCIENCE EITHER", but i started playing this game a year ago since my real life friends were, and one of them has a lot of society anxiety too (to the point of not being able to go to the grocery store alone etc).

in her first month of playing, she looked up class guides and read about the meta and was like "hmm, CHRONO SEEMS GOOD, _~~they'll never nerf it~~_", and since she had a mesmer and enjoyed it already, she geared it and practiced whatever was on SC for the rota for it at the time, because her end goal was to have a class that was viable for every raid ever.

we played this game for MONTHS without talking to anyone, because what is socializing??? and she stopped playing about half a year ago because she had to go to England for exchange and got busy with real life.

in all that time, we never did anything outside of t1 fractals, and only because we did them with our real life friends.

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II.

about 6 months ago, i started pugging my t1 fractals. i asked her to join, but she never did.

AND LITERALLY THE ONLY REASON - okay, that's a fallacy, that is literally a fallacy LOL. but okay, the reason i decided to start pugging fractals when i did was because... SO GET THIS, our other real life friend, a guy named michael, started pugging his t1 fracs by himself because he wanted to get his dailies done and make gold.

and we were like "waow so brave what a brave boi". this was about the time that siren's came out, since i remember he was like "oh today we did this fractal that was really hard" and i was like "which one?" and he was like "idk, it had like, throwing treasure on the pirate ship". i had never done siren's before though, so i didn't know what he meant at the time.

one day after pugging his t1s, michael told us "oh mah gawd so this one guy gave us ALL 50g after cliffside, and was like thank you SOOOO much".

i was like "50g to EACH of you??" and he was like YEAAH LMAO.

and okay, i didn't + don't know much about the meta or what was good for what, not that it really matters in this context anyway, but i knew my friend was playing on his necro with newly boosted soldier's gear. when he had started pugging my chrono friend and i were like "uhh is that really good LOL you'll be doing no dmg", and he was like "lol idc if i get carried, plus i'm working on my zerker's gear rn" (he was slowly replacing it piece by piece).

and honestly? that is totally a fine and good and *reasonable* approach, to get into pugging and fractals and whatnot.

IT WAS LITERALLY THE NEXT DAY that i decided to pug my t1 fracs, LOL. ~~*because i was secretly hoping someone would pay me 50g*.~~ because i realized that it didn't matter what you brought and that people probably would not be so judgmental if you weren't perfect or didn't know anything or whatever.

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III.

to put things in context, i always really wanted to try out higher tier fractals and raids and stuff, but i had literally made Aurora before i ever did anything higher than a t1 fractal, since it felt less gated to me.

sometime after pugging my way to t4, i made a friend in this game (who i got closer to via another friend, who i had gotten closer to via fractals) and she was quite new too. she did her first raid one day, and then a few weeks later she invited me to a raid because her friends invited her to a training one and said it was okay if someone who didn't know anything like me joined.

and y'know??? like it took SO LONG for that initial first one, because unless you reach out yourself, the opportunity won't just fall into your lap (which i don't think is really a problem or part of the game design that needs to be fixed), but yeah.

plus w5/6 are a lot more gated than the other ones/harder to find trainings for/to get experience in, which is understandable ofc, but just saying that "get into raiding" is a really broad/vague term

edit: lots of changes in phrasing x__x for readability purposes

hohoho i'm sure a rambler LMAO and i realize no1 currs

> @"Rico.6873" said:

> > @"Cyninja.2954" said:

> > > @"Rico.6873" said:

> > > > @"Kahlan.7249" said:

> > > > wait why do you have to use the clone teleport thing?

> > > >

> > > > i'm assuming by "first sword second ability" you mean sword 3 or illusionary leap

> > >

> > > The Swap part of Illusionary Leap yes

> > > It can be used defensively with this boss?

> >

> > No, and you shouldn't be pressing the Swap (Sword 3 2nd cast) after Illusionary Leap (Sword 3 1st cast) once the tornado spaws, or at all for that matter. There is literally no reason to switch places with your clone during this fight, ever.

>

> Agreed, tried not using the switch but at the heat of the battle, dodging the giant tornado, rezzing allies before they get swallowed up, running into the small tornadoes to dodge his giant AOE and then running to side of the platform to be shielded by a protective barrier and then trying not to get hit by small tornadoes so we can all cc him in one go.

>

> My fingers slip and I double press the clone swap which launches me into a small tornado right into the big one where I die.

>

> Only had this happen to me 2x at the last 20% of his hp :(

>

> And the funny part is the F4 chrono swap, that swap doesn't kill me.....

and yeah, that's unfortunate

i don't really have anything to say other than (easier said than done i know), really pay attention to what you're pressing so you don't accidentally double-press it :open_mouth:

altho i suppose this goes for almost every skill, try not to press things accidentally aha x) which is more general advice rather than just wing 7 air djinn chrono advice LOl

> @"Nephalem.8921" said:

> > @"Kahlan.7249" said:

> > diviner's rev is also really easy and suitable for fracs of all types

> >

> > and you might be able to play it in some raids where dh isnt that great

> >

> > and rev is REALLY tanky which is awesome if you're learning things

> >

> > so much protection, health, plus (if you're a diviner's rev) the fact you're usually paired with a heal firebrand/in their sub makes things very forgiving

>

> While you are right with the viability, getting a diviner set without using ascended armor boxes is quite painful and i'm not sure if desired by new players.

> Raid pugs are also really slow to adapt to the diviner ren so groups demanding rens happen already but are quite rare compared to the double chrono comps.

> It's awesome in fractals though and replaced the chrono setup even in most pugs.

> I would go with guardian as first choice like other here have already mentioned. Power dh is good to optimal on every power fight and can be played as condi or support aswell. qFb even uses the same gear as dh in fractals.

> Ren with it's diviner/condi builds is a really solid 2nd choice though if you get bored of guardian. Twin largos is the only fight where mirage is leagues above all the other options, condi ren is comparable on all the other condi fights to mirage so it just comes down to preference.

ooh that's a good point; i'd forgotten how much diviner's gear is a pain in the ass

and yeah, there are so many double chrono set-ups

i never use my mic, that doesn't mean you can't join in things and listen?

sadsociallyineptlyfe tho, i feel ya :'( IT'S HAARD not being on voice sometimes, especially if you're learning, although i don't think it makes you a liability

i've never had anybody say "YOU MUST HAVE YOUR MIC ON"

and plus, people have their mics off for other reasons; too much background noise, or no mic at all, etc

socializing (especially in voice) in this game to me is optional, rather than mandatory

hmm, for someone who's very introverted (and maybe i'm just replacing irl interaction w/ game interaction - JUST MAYBE), i've made quite a few good friends in this game in the past few months

most of them are from fractals; some random ones from open world and wvw; others are friends of friends

i haven't really met - or well, i have met of course, but i suppose i mean i haven't gotten close to - anyone via guilds. i'm not really a guild or big group kinda person, more of a one-on-one or small social circles person?

it's worth nothing that i've been playing for almost a year, but didn't really talk to anybody until january 2019 (when i made my first gw2 frann)

and also cough cough i *may or may not have* met my ex via this game, but he doesn't play anymore

and i *may or may not* have a thing for another boy right now, BUT that's for the future, not the present hehehe

frailty is honestly, honestly, not that bad

saying that as someone who pugged t3s in the horror time of new instabs (fire pre-nerf + birds etc) as full zerker's s/d weaver, w/o defensive pots, w/o healers most of the time

frailty was always one of the instabs i was happiest to see; it hardly offers anything vastly different/challenging while still encouraging better gameplay

i mean, you should probably be dodging a 9k one-shot anyway

(NOT THAT I DO bc wats dodging, and wow having a healer makes everything so much easier, but i never felt unfairly punished if i went down w/ frailty)

flux bombs are really annoying when pre-booning; if they could be disabled in some vicinity of the mistlock, that would be great (or at least just pre-booning for skorvie in shattered observatory, bc there's only that small little platform)

wait why do you have to use the clone teleport thing?

i'm assuming by "first sword second ability" you mean sword 3 or illusionary leap

in fractals in NA, it's almost always the firebrand

and anyone who's played healbrand to some sort of competency knows it's so, so good for pugging and offers so much defensive utility + indirect offensive utility in the form of ignoring mechanics/stab

diviner's rev is also really easy and suitable for fracs of all types

and you might be able to play it in some raids where dh isnt that great

and rev is REALLY tanky which is awesome if you're learning things

so much protection, health, plus (if you're a diviner's rev) the fact you're usually paired with a heal firebrand/in their sub makes things very forgiving

> @"Cameron.6450" said:

> Guys I want to play in my local football team but I don't want anyone to watch what I do when the ball comes near me in case they decide they don't want me on the team anymore.

LOL this

also, since when the heck was knowing someone's dps considered an invasion of privacy @__@ like dude it is not spying on what you're doing in the bedroom, asking about personal healthcare info, or uhh stealing your credit card number

it's literally just dps in a game LOL

as FAAAR out as possible; i hate not being at max zoom, and when the game forcibly zooms me closer (though i get it's inevitable sometimes).