Return to Home Mechanical Reference UNIT Strat Flower Strat
Getting Started
ToF CM is one of those encounters where it is difficult, if not downright impossible, to find groups in the public LFG. This is due to the necessity for voice communication: the fight is difficult to call out or organize via in-game chat, and requires experience and knowledge of specific roles. Therefore, most people interested in running it congregate in external online communities, primarily on discord.
Being full of players who regularly play the encounter, these communities are incredible resources for players looking to get started. I would highly recommend anyone interested in running the encounter to join Void Lounge discord server, which regularly posts progression and kill runs for Temple of Febe and other difficult encounters.
Getting into your first run
Once you are in a server, getting into a run is actually very simple! Firstly, both of the communities above have areas with builds optimized for ToF, created and updated by dedicated members. Once you have a serviceable build, hop over to the progression LFG channels and look for a No Experience run. No-exp events are run regularly by experienced members looking to teach newcomers the encounter.
Most commanders will only require that you have an appropriate build for your role, and that you know how to play your class.
ToF CM is still one of the most challenging endgame encounters! You should have some experience in other endgame content and a decent build before joining any runs.
Getting into more runs
As you advance further into the encounter and see more mechanics, you will likely want to run with people who have similar experience as yourself. To manage this, most servers use an experience level system: you can submit logs demonstrating your skill, and get assigned discord roles that guarantee your progress to all members of the community. There are various roles with increasing requirements, and more advanced roles are prerequisite to eventually get into runs with players going for the kill.
If you are a dedicated gamer and want to run multiple times a week, you will likely benefit from forming or joining a static group. Most servers will have a dedicated channel where you can find groups looking for new members.
ArcDPS Combat Logs
ArcDPS is at its core a damage meter: an add-on for Guild Wars 2 that enables you to see exactly how much damage you are dealing to the boss. However, it also has another very important function: it works as a general combat metrics tool, tracking and logging every detail of an encounter from beginning to end.
ArcDPS logs are incredibly useful: they show you exactly how an encounter played out, what skills each player used, who was affected by what mechanic. Regularly checking your logs and understanding what you can improve is an important step towards becoming a better player.
Snowcrows, one of the premier raiding guilds, offers a nice guide to installing and setting up ArcDPS.
Upload, Archive and View Logs
Logs can be viewed locally using the Elite Insights parser, but most people will instead upload them to a parsing/hosting website. The simplest option is DPS Report: simply drag and drop the .zevtc archive generated by your ArcDPS, and you will obtain a nice link to a parsed log. For example: dps.report. You can then share this link with anyone you want.
If you don’t want to go through the hassle of manually uploading all of your logs, tools such as Wingman automatically upload your logs to their website, where you can then browse them individually, and compare your performance to other players’. For example, here you can find the average and top performances for Temple of Febe (make sure to select Challenge Mode!), and you can also view the best performing logs for each patch.
Analyze Logs
Void Lounge has made publicly available a tool for analyzing ToF logs, which can be found here. This tool grades various aspects of your performance, and can be very helpful to understand if you’re doing anything wrong. An average score of 5/10 or above is decent, average scores of 8/10 or above are abnormally good. The page also contains useful guidelines for reading a log and understanding what is expected of your role.