tethyr.6513

Gonzi's advice is solid. Start an LFG right away and set the tone of the run with "first time, new/veterans welcome." Doesn't even matter if it's your first time -- or tenth time because you feel shaky on the mechanics. Experienced players that don't care about speed runs will instantly join and take the lead. At worst you're looking at a 15 min wait, so just tell people to do their own thing while you wait for the party to fill.

Ryudnard, I think the most helpful advice anyone can offer you is to make friends with people that play Tier 4 Fractals on a regular basis and start there. Many of us go out of our way to help new players get into the mode, and would much prefer to play with someone like yourself that's there to chillax and have fun. If you'd like to team up sometime, whisper me in game (and remind me of this thread). The only way to stop sucking at something is to keep moving forward. T4s are truly rewarding and worth the effort.

This needs an adjustment is some form, and it very much needs to be prioritized. Even on low/low, there are so many players present that skills won't even activate. That's NOT okay as it is at all. It's the same problem that occurs in WvW when too many people are fighting in the same location. No one should respond to this problem by saying "change your settings to low" and think that's acceptable. It needs to be addressed. How they do it is up to them, but enemies shouldn't pop in & out of visibility, and players should be able to use all of their skills off CD. In the Fire Elemental fight, there were so many people that even the NPC golem/elemental was INVISIBLE until you clicked on him. What the kitten?! Why does turning character settings to low cause the enemies to pop out of visibility? Then as your fighting him, the only reliable skill is auto-attack. Lastly, there's Bobblehead and other vanity items, like in the Taidha Covington fight where players can drop it by the bombs. Why are these vanity items not set so that their 'Use' dialog is the LOWEST priority - under every other usable item in the open world. It's really obnoxious to read people say this is fine. It's not. I love the game as much as most, but the more glaring problems need to be addressed. It's NOT fun to see a chaotic explosion of special effects and only be able to hit #1 while 90% of the players AND NPCs are invisible so you can maintain an FPS rate that doesn't make you ill.

Quit reading after this statement. This is the reason people don't want it. That attitude right there. I have used dps meters in other games, but don't feel the need to have one in this game. Do I care if people use it? No. Do I care if you generalize me for not wanting to use it? Yep. Tell you what, you give me any class and a week to learn its rotation, and the gear needed for whatever content you want, and I'll out dps you...I don't need a meter. You don't need a meter....you don't know me, and at this point I don't care to know you. Got nothing to hide. I just don't feel the need to use one. The problem is that people like you automatically think people have something to hide by not wanting it. Yikes, anyone else get a read on what Infusion that is? +5 Hostility. He wasn't talking about you. Most groups don't have any requirement that you run ArcDPS. I've never been in a group that failed to understand a firm 'No, you can run it but I won't.' I'll even enthusiastically ask how my numbers look as we go, because why not? I'd like to know I brought game.

With all due respect, Zel, the combat log and system information tells a lot about your character. From the food you are using, to the active boons you're providing, to the conditions afflicting you, and even what Rune/Sigil traits are triggering, etc. There's more than enough information freely being passed to your teammates by ArenaNet that it isn't overtly difficult to tell if you aren't performing - without even looking at ArcDPS. And if you constantly end up downed or dead, you're telegraphing plain as day that something is either seriously wrong with your gear, traits or skill as a player. ArcDPS only makes it marginally quicker to tell you aren't delivering if your role is DPS. People can figure it out without Arc, it just takes multiple wipes, and you'd still land on the kick list.

You don't seem to understand how ArcDPS works. The information it looks at is the same that goes scrolling through your combat log and that of every other player near you. It just interprets it in a more readable and readily available way. It's nothing that the person standing next to you can't find by just scrolling through their combat log. They aren't privy to any information that wasn't already provided by ArenaNet.

I'm just going with the assumption you play neither. Tier 4 Fractals requires all Ascended gear or you'd 1-swipe die from agony alone. There's nothing casual about 3 instabilities that require cooperation from all your teammates to overcome. I personally don't have high standards in T4s other than mind where you stand, if you down more than twice in an encounter I'm leaving you down for my own good, and to respect my playtime by coming with a willingness to learn. The Six Gods forbid 2 people are performing that poorly with an IDK mentality, we're going to figure out who's leaving.

That's usually my experience too. The "noobs" are rarely ever a problem that can't be fixed with a bit of encouragement.

You're right, GW2 doesn't hold your hand. Even less so with end-game/max-level content. Unlike most of the games you mentioned however, it offers a vast amount of information that players can look up on their own, be it through the wiki, Dulfy, SnowCrows, MetaBattle, YouTube or a plethora of other websites, in considerable detail. GW2 doesn't set people up for failure. Individuals set themselves up for failure by choosing not to look up information on their own, take the time to learn how to properly play any given profession or the mechanics of a difficult encounter, and just plain expecting everything to be simplified and handed to them. GW2 isn't that game (beyond the Core Open World). I particularly enjoy it because it isn't any of those games you listed.

It seems like a lot of people subjectively believe that they are getting kicked from groups solely over their lack of DPS. I run T4 Fractals almost daily, and not only would I never kick someone over their DPS, I rarely ever see it occur - and I do said Fractals nearly 95% of the time with PUGs. I also don't join groups that talk about DPS and immediately drop ones that do. Whenever the moment comes that we might need to kick someone because we're wiping, we always start with 'Who is ignoring the mechanics?,' 'Who is always down almost immediately?', or - the best one - 'Who is the raging know-it-all toxic hot mess?' Kicking that last one tends to immediately fix all performance issues. ArcDPS isn't the problem. It's a combo of toxic players and players that come to group content unprepared. There is no 'I' in teamwork, and being a nice guy (gal) doesn't earn you the right to be carried. Being a nasty know-it-all (even as the god-tier player you think/know you are) earns you the privilege of getting kicked.

I find the notion of the OP getting kicked over DPS in AC isn't very likely - especially if the build was indeed SnowCrows to a T. I'd fathom he/she was kicked for another reason entirely, or no reason that had anything to do with him/her (like swapping in a friend). No one drops a player from AC over DPS. Failing at the mechanics or constantly in a downstate would be my first guess. Getting lost in the Catacombs and not finding your way through the skelk maze would be another. I don't have a problem with ArcDPS. If anything, its easier to understand output should be added to the game instead of through an overlay. The same for its build swapping features. The problem with raids is that the bar is incredibly high for failure and people's time is valuable. ArenaNet really should add a training tier to Raids so that newer and inexperienced players have a means by which to learn the mechanics and rotations of difficult content without burdening 9 other people in a Challenge Mode setting.