So who's cleared an explorable?

[Solidito]

Not tried any till today, did AC Explorable with a group, got owned in the first group we chose the path that takes you to the lovers crypt, didn't go well.

Second group i tried with we cleared it, lost a shit load of money on repairs, got no good loot, took ages, but i got 30 tears out of the 250 i need so yey ;D

Explorables with randoms though seems a lot more stressful than i can see it being done with friends/teamspeak.

[Grenzstein]

Tried with a PUG, there was a Necro yelling at the guardian that he was supposed to be tanking. Didn't go well.

Got a guild group together and everything went better. Lots of deaths and fun.

[Deleted]

Found a good group about 3 days ago,did 4 runs in AC explore,only 1 wipe,2 3rd path,and one first and second path,got about 90 tears.I got lucky i guess

[Deleted]

I have cleared it plenty of times, the number 1 reason why I sometimes dont is bugs, I´ve had the 2nd boss of path 2 bug a million times and the last boss one time. I currently have 430 tears.

[Lucky_]

Not a good idea to run a pug this early into game release. People don't really know how to play the game well yet, and we don't understand some of the game mechanics well enough. Plus, there's no real way to measure performance at the moment, so vetting people is very much hit and miss.

Get into a decent guild and do runs with it for now. Explorables are fairly easy in an organised group that doesn't have to carry people. Some are annoying or just badly designed (i.e. need certain minimum dps numbers or certain classes), but it's rather hard to call any of them "hard" in the strictest sense of the word.

[Deleted]

Going really well on my server. Very great groups without ninja pulling and taking care of each other to everyone's best ability. Wipes <10 per run, and I did over 20. These are 'PUG's.

[Lucas Ashrock]

We just need to spread a little more the rule "No, we don't need a warrior as tank, and no, guardian is not the monk" then, maybe, PUG will work better. Hoping noone complain when i keep repeating "Let's wait when 80, or we waste time". Some players are just hopeless

[Deleted]

We just need to spread a little more the rule "No, we don't need a warrior as tank, and no, guardian is not the monk" then, maybe, PUG will work better. Hoping noone complain when i keep repeating "Let's wait when 80, or we waste time". Some players are just hopeless

Yes having a "tank" and "healer" sounds dumb when someone asks for it. The healer will never be justified but the tank most definitely will, a "tank" will make most dungeons much much easier, you dont actually tank stuff but standing in melee range will often make you take the aggro and when you play a guardian like I do you will save people from dying when you are taking the hits.

[oplawlz]

Explorables with randoms though seems a lot more stressful than i can see it being done with friends/teamspeak.

Give it time man, folks are still learning how to play. As far as pugs go, I should warn you it took a solid 3 years before Scholomance and Strat were puggable on my realm in wow without bleeding out of ones eyes, so don't expect miracles :P Join a guild to run with . . . better yet, join 3 or 4. Really no reason to be anti social in this game

[Grenzstein]

Yes having a "tank" and "healer" sounds dumb when someone asks for it. The healer will never be justified but the tank most definitely will, a "tank" will make most dungeons much much easier, you dont actually tank stuff but standing in melee range will often make you take the aggro and when you play a guardian like I do you will save people from dying when you are taking the hits.

That's not really tanking when you are not holding aggro properly.
I've managed to do it with my Mesmer, simply standing in Melee range using two swords and rotating my CDs to stay a live. Managed to do a good job, but i'm no tank. Some fights required kiting or other strategies. I used to be a main tank on that other MMO and it's REALLY different in GW2 IMO. We usually rotate between us, even our Elementalist could jump in with daggers and hold his own dodging the boss.

[Deleted]

Bring a Elemantist ( with staff ) and let her/him just do water spell healing , and you'll do the dungeon with 0 wipes.

[Deleted]

Not a good idea to run a pug this early into game release. People don't really know how to play the game well yet, and we don't understand some of the game mechanics well enough. Plus, there's no real way to measure performance at the moment, so vetting people is very much hit and miss.

Get into a decent guild and do runs with it for now. Explorables are fairly easy in an organised group that doesn't have to carry people. Some are annoying or just badly designed (i.e. need certain minimum dps numbers or certain classes), but it's rather hard to call any of them "hard" in the strictest sense of the word.

I dont agree that it is a bad idea, PuGs can be really skilled and you will find new players to play with. People do know how to play the game, since a lot of people are talking about AC I will use that as an example:
On the first boss, Kholer (named something like that) you HAVE to dodge his attack, block his attack or LoS his attack, if you dont you are dead. This attack is really easy to spot so when a team mate dies to it several times you know this player is someone you dont want to group with again.

Another easy way to see the players skill is when they are ressing, if you a downed and relatively safe (this also means if you are downed and boss is hitting you) your team mates should go and res you. However if you are downed in a pool of poison, fire or w/e they should not. At the same time they should NEVER res you if you are dead (asuming you are in combat). Additionally someone who dies needs to run back ASAP, laying dead is not going to help your team so unless the boss is at the final 5% a dead person should run back.

Those are all pretty good clues to how skilled a player is.

---------- Post added 2012-09-08 at 12:40 AM ----------

That's not really tanking when you are not holding aggro properly.
I've managed to do it with my Mesmer, simply standing in Melee range using two swords and rotating my CDs to stay a live. Managed to do a good job, but i'm no tank. Some fights required kiting or other strategies. I used to be a main tank on that other MMO and it's REALLY different in GW2 IMO. We usually rotate between us, even our Elementalist could jump in with daggers and hold his own dodging the boss.

Yep everyone can do it, that is how GW2 is made but Guardians is best at it with Warrior and Engineer taking 2nd and 3rd place.

[Malthurius]

Yep everyone can do it, that is how GW2 is made but Guardians is best at it with Warrior and Engineer taking 2nd and 3rd place.

Guardian's are terrible at it. Guardians have close to the lowest HP pool in the game, despite having heavy armor, it doesn't help with condition damage at all.

No class can take hits, you're suppose to avoid getting hit in the first place, and in doing so (Dodging) you're going to create distance and lose aggro. Aggro also isn't based purely on proximity. Effectively, everyone tanks at a certain point if we are defining it as someone who gets the attention of the mob. Telling a Warrior, Guardian, Engineer, what have you to tank is obnoxiously idiotic because it can't be done.

[Grenzstein]

Guardian's are terrible at it. Guardians have close to the lowest HP pool in the game, despite having heavy armor, it doesn't help with condition damage at all.

No class can take hits, you're suppose to avoid getting hit in the first place, and in doing so (Dodging) you're going to create distance and lose aggro. Aggro also isn't based purely on proximity. Effectively, everyone tanks at a certain point if we are defining it as someone who gets the attention of the mob. Telling a Warrior, Guardian, Engineer, what have you to tank is obnoxiously idiotic because it can't be done.

This.
Usually i can "tank" only if take no damage, that's why i do it with my Mesmer with Dual Swords. Using Blurred, Distortion and Active Dodges i can hold my own for some time. So can a Warrior using Shield Stance and so on. But you are not supposed to eat hits and wait for a heal like your average tank.

[Deleted]

Done Twilight Arbor Exploreable mode some times now, got 100 marks from there.

Did it with pugs, it was rather easy after I explained the tactics some times.

[Fitzgerald77]

AC. I tried it and cleared it once. It was me (warrior) 2 guardians a mesmer and a ranger. We got raped pretty bad in the first 2 or 3 rooms but once we learned that it was no typical dungeon like in other MMO's we did fairly fine and cleared it in about 40 mins or so.

[Deleted]

Guardian's are terrible at it. Guardians have close to the lowest HP pool in the game, despite having heavy armor, it doesn't help with condition damage at all.

No class can take hits, you're suppose to avoid getting hit in the first place, and in doing so (Dodging) you're going to create distance and lose aggro. Aggro also isn't based purely on proximity. Effectively, everyone tanks at a certain point if we are defining it as someone who gets the attention of the mob. Telling a Warrior, Guardian, Engineer, what have you to tank is obnoxiously idiotic because it can't be done.

Generally condition damage is not whats going to kill you. I dont know where you got this idea that guardians are bad at it, guardians can have up to 6 on demand block/invul skills which means they can survive something that would have killed everyone else 6 times. If we count the passive aegis its upped to 7 times and if we also count the 2nd and 3rd block you get from the focus (these have to be used quickly after eachother or they dont work) you suddenly have 9 blocks. Its not the HP that counts as you say yourself, its the blocks as you can block 1 shots. When you pair dodging with blocks Guardians can stay alive for a long time by themselves against bosses.

Dodgin is what allows other classes to "tank" but fact is that a guardian can do better than some classes even if they dont dodge at all.

Obviously there are times when you cant dodge or block an attack and thats where the guardians high toughness and passive signet (10% reduced damage from all sources) comes handy. Not to mention if you are specced right you can also keep protection (33% reduced damage) up on yourself almost 100% of the time.

[DrakeWurrum]

Guardian's are terrible at it. Guardians have close to the lowest HP pool in the game, despite having heavy armor, it doesn't help with condition damage at all.

Guardians can do it, with all their passive healing and blocking boosting their effective HP, in addition to everything else (like Mace/Shield auto attack having a built-in self heal, plus the Symbol of Regeneration). If conditions are your argument, Guardians actually are one of the very best at condition removal.

[Deleted]

I did AC explorable with a pug and we had no "wipes". We did the second path, which seemed quite frankly not that much harder than normal but everyone was level 80 so perhaps that was a large factor. I've done TA too which took a LONG time but still was doable with a pug. I'm not afraid to run the others with pugs, I was just on a pretty dead server so was almost impossible to find a group even for normals.... I've just switched though so will see how it goes now

[Larynx]

@Guardians being tanks/support/necessary for groups:

Guardians are the most transparently support profession. That is why they are regarded as necessary, and typically assumed to be tanks/healers. Just because every guardian in the game is going support (they're not) doesn't mean the profession is good at support. It means it's the most obvious support, from the traits to the utilities to even the whole archetype of the profession.

Warriors can heal and support. Elementalists can be tanky and control. Guardians can do incredible damage. Most people don't want to spend 30 minutes theorycrafting and testing out a build though, so I guess we can't hope for anything.