Guild Wars 2

Hi everyone

First time posting here. I know the reason why Teleportation Guns were banned — They were exploited in Arah as well as other dungeons and what not to skip content. However, not pointing out that the Gun itself should not be CAPABLE of skipping content by going through walls (like fix the walls instead?) — I will instead redirect the conversation to the other consumable changes:

We had Ash Kits that let us abuse stealth — ANet’s correct response was to nerf the CD on those things. Now they are literally used once (if ever). Effectively making them “useless” compared to their prior glory. A bunch of karma wasted for those that have stacks left on their toons. (But not really, the main point is coming ahead:)

Why, specifically, the Healing Seed? As a main Thief, this was one of my only reliable support option for my parties. I don’t think that sharing venoms is great for party support. I don’t think the regen applied to my party members on stealth is even close to the support other professions have. And I don’t believe blinding champions that have “Unshakeable” to be very reliable xP.

So I relied on Shortbow #2 and Healing Seed pods to help my parties in tough situations. I thought it was AMAZING. I was like, here is the company that stayed true to their word. They said they wanted to make all professions equal to play and here is the Healing Seed that helps do that.

I used to think OMG warriors “For great Justice” is so over powered! Then I saw ANet added Altruism runes. So I have the option to spam healing skills on my Thief every 12-15 seconds (12 is the lowest CD heal I have on my Thief, 15 is the actual cooldown on the runes) to apply 3 stacks of might and fury as well. To me this is another great way to go around some of the OP of other classes by making them available with upgrade components and consumables with reasonable cooldowns somewhat in line with other professions.

So couldn’t ANet have reduced the amount Healing Seed would heal, or lengthened it’s cooldown to keep it inline with other profession support — Was banning really the only option for the Healing Seed? I’m very sad to see it go. I’m not expecting a response directly from ANet, but perhaps the rest of the community on here can help me figure out what people were doing to abuse this product. I was not someone who would spam it every 15 seconds, nor did I run in an organized group such that we could face tank enemies while spamming the seed. I can’t even fathom what was happening with this consumable to make them want to ban it entirely

Hope this doesn’t rub anyone the wrong way, just a first time poster venting some frustrations And I already know the argument against the Teleportation Gun, so please help me figure out the Healing Seed argument too

Hey, stop that. Healing pod is a nice healing item, removes conditions, but you can’t say that by removing this item from dungeons, they ruined your game as a thief.

First of all, thieves aren’t really good with healing skills, especially party healing. If you want to support your party, give them poison attacks, use your basilisk poison (it’s working as intended now, it just doesn’t immobilize if stun is broken – which made no sense, you get rid of poison and still have to stay affected?).
If you think that healing pod was the god item for thief support, just delete your toon and stop playing

I guess they saw how useful it’d become in Fractals, it certainly didn’t break the game, but I guess they want people to focus on classes and combo fields for these sort of things more than healing seeds.

If its any consolation, I’d have preferred to just see the timer on it changed too, I get why they banned a lot of things that broke dungeons, but healing seed didn’t really, it just made high level fractals a bit more tolerable.

They believe in, “Don’t raise the bridge, lower the river”. They could spend hours fixing their mistakes, or remove the item that causes them. They always go the easy route. I wonder sometimes if they (the devs) ever write code after the game is out, or do they simply work within an interface like world builder?

Really the biggest issue I see is that it gives a thief the ability to reliably create their own water field, and then use the best blast finisher in the game on it repeatedly.
This exact reason is why a thief will never be given a reliable fire, water, or light field ability. Something of that level of power (the repeated use, not just one finisher) should require multiple people to perform.

Well a ranger pet can pull these out of the ground so they are not banned as you put them its just a class can use them you could just get a ranger in your pt if you wanted them so badly or even play as a ranger your self.

So far the answers have gone as follows:

• Possible that the game developers want to focus on group dynamics and not emphasize consumables for individual classes. (Zyphent)
• Unreferenced assumption that devs are lazy (Evon)
• Explaining why the previous implementation was OP (Gimmethegepgun)
• Saying I should roll a Ranger (Jski)

But to clarify: What I was hoping was some insight as to why the other options were not “healthy” for instance increasing cooldown, lowering the time it was a water field, or decreasing the amount it healed would all be alternatives. Just because a Thief could in the past fire 7-8 blast finishers in the water field for AoE heals is not a reason to ban the item entirely. Thieves should have some form of healing their party members just like other professions. They could have internal timers on how often a single player can blast finish a field (Which I would hate.). There literally were so many options. As it stands now, a Thief in upper level fractals is kitten again esp in comparison to classes that can drop reflects (Guardians / Mesmers).

So far Zyphent has come closest to answering the question. Was I incorrect in assuming that ANet wanted each class to be “equal” in the game? As in Upper Level fractals where it’s clearly biased towards Guardians and Mesmers. Of course the content can be completed, but I would assume that consumables offer the option for other professions to even out the playing field with different professions.

I have an 80 Mesmer, Guardian, and Warrior. The answer should not be “Roll a Ranger next” xP And to be honest, I’m still quite capable of doing content easier on my mes/guard — I just wish my Thief didn’t have to be further pushed out of the limelight.

Are the “healthy” alternatives I’ve mentioned not good? Are they indeed incapable of solving the issues at hand? These are some questions I have

Here’s my take on this:

if 5 warriors (or whatever) take these things into a dungeon then it removes or replaces the need for other character classes. Have a portal gun? What do I need a mesmer for? Have a healing seedpod? Don’t need a ranger healing spring or elementalist healing rain. Spy kit? Don’t need a thief then.

So everyone plays the flavor of the day and relies on consumables for utility.

But Hoyvin, by your own argument, why would you need 5 Warriors?

I also used these on my mesmer during certain fractals (Cliffside/Grawl, mainly) Null Field simply cant remove all the vulnerability that people get, and rather then let themk die, I I usually go about removing it so we don’t wipe. At level 26+, those cultists get real nasty. You need to remove it or you will get burned down, even if you are a bunker build. I’m pretty sad they removed it honestly. It’s not going to reshape many players though, I foresee more people dying since others aren’t coming prepared for the dungeon by these or utility/weapon choices. :x

The Seeds were powerful, but not because of the healing. Condition Removal was much more potent. I’d rather they have put a timer on it, so at least you can bring it out to support your team in a tough fight when you expend your utility. :/

Hoyvin.3241:

Here’s my take on this:

if 5 warriors (or whatever) take these things into a dungeon then it removes or replaces the need for other character classes. Have a portal gun? What do I need a mesmer for? Have a healing seedpod? Don’t need a ranger healing spring or elementalist healing rain. Spy kit? Don’t need a thief then.

So everyone plays the flavor of the day and relies on consumables for utility.

I find this post pretty strange.

The game design is supposed to be around not “needing” a class to complete a dungeon. It appears to have failed as many dungeons require tanks, or healers, or something along those lines.

The game was supposed to allow 5 Engineers to be able to finish fractals. That was what we were sold, so there should be a way to do it.

Sericenthe.5310:

The game was supposed to allow 5 Engineers to be able to finish fractals. That was what we were sold, so there should be a way to do it.

There is a way to do FotM 48 with 5 Engineers without any consumable bar nourishments, you just need to be bloody good players to do it. The reason people take classes like Guardians and Mesmers in addition to their whatever class is because it makes everyone else’s job easier.

Just remove all the consumables from the game already.

Clearly using them at all is either unfair, an exploit, or not intended.

Took them out of WvW, whatever…
You can spend game currency to buy blueprints…. so why not allow players to spend mortars and charzookas and other cool stuff?
Because Anet.
You are on the fence with that one… and I disagree with the decision… but at the same time I don’t even care.

Now you are removing the ability to use consumables in dungeons?

What are you thinking?

Instead of fixing something that you see as broken, you would rather just throw it away.

Also…
Whoever the genius is in charge of making these changes really needs needs to study the list of consumables available in the game and tell me how many non-exploitable ones were banned (healing seed pod), and how many exploitable ones were unaffected (experimental rifle).

xxx.9514:

But Hoyvin, by your own argument, why would you need 5 Warriors?

Because, at this point, it does the most DPS of any class. I think for most people, who play the way the game is intended to be played, I don’t think this is much of an issue. It isn’t for me. I run with a small guild and we pretty much bring whichever toon we feel like playing.

I dunno, maybe I’m full of kitten. Just throwing out an idea.

Sericenthe.5310:

The game was supposed to allow 5 Engineers to be able to finish fractals. That was what we were sold, so there should be a way to do it.

Right, you don’t. You still don’t. But when it becomes the meta (I hate that word, but everyone uses it) then something is broken, and I think that consumables were not helping the situation.

I’ve seen more than a couple posts in the past regarding thieves in fractals and because of spy kits, they’re just not needed, and 99% of people who play thieves are kitten and why bother blah blah blah. They take spy kits away, and suddenly everyone is up in arms about the dredge fractal. Now, you still don’t need a thief, but they come in pretty handy.

I think it’s more about the players working through problems with the set of tools their given, and honestly, I think the use of consumables in dungeons is an oversight by A-Net. My guess is that they were never intended to be used in dungeons.

Consumables are part of the game. If they want them out of the game then take them out of the game entirely. With this new one there has been a consumable nerf in the last 3 patches. Obviously someone at Arena in QC didn’t test a real maxed out character with their content. Maxed out meaning “Top gear for the build” and " best consumables for the build.

Pretty sad if you ask me. And it still doesn’t fix the problem of folks being very “build” and “class” picky for dungeon groupings. It’s not supposed to matter. This was supposed to be the anti-trinity game and so far it’s failing at it.

Dungeons weren’t designed with these items in mind, so they’re not balanced around having them. If you feel you need these items, then you’re either not doing the content at the intended difficulty or you’re not with a balanced group. These items can remove the need for people to actually specialize, in this case into defense/support, or remove the bonuses for bringing other classes. When specialization isn’t needed, the game turns into everyone wanting only the best DPS available, which usually results in 1 class becoming dominant overall.

If you can provide the utility of another class or spec just by using an item, what happens to the other person? They had to sacrifice something to get it, whereas you didn’t. This results in the other person being weaker than you in comparison, so why would you want to bring them. For normal groups, this doesn’t really matter, but when people start to min/max, those classes become useless.

ArenaNet never said that doing a dungeon with 5 of same class would be optimal, especially 5 with pure DPS specs, so don’t expect it to be as easy as running a balanced group. They only said that it was possible, whereas in a normal MMO it’s not even an option.

They could have left them useable and just gone the route of other games and simply put 10 minute to hour long cooldowns on them. They probably thought it was better however to just keep them as fun items and just disable them where they cause the most damage.

Healix.5819:

Dungeons weren’t designed with these items in mind, so they’re not balanced around having them. If you feel you need these items, then you’re either not doing the content at the intended difficulty or you’re not with a balanced group. These items can remove the need for people to actually specialize, in this case into defense/support, or remove the bonuses for bringing other classes. When specialization isn’t needed, the game turns into everyone wanting only the best DPS available, which usually results in 1 class becoming dominant overall.

If you can provide the utility of another class or spec just by using an item, what happens to the other person? They had to sacrifice something to get it, whereas you didn’t. This results in the other person being weaker than you in comparison, so why would you want to bring them. For normal groups, this doesn’t really matter, but when people start to min/max, those classes become useless.

ArenaNet never said that doing a dungeon with 5 of same class would be optimal, especially 5 with pure DPS specs, so don’t expect it to be as easy as running a balanced group. They only said that it was possible, whereas in a normal MMO it’s not even an option.

They could have left them useable and just gone the route of other games and simply put 10 minute to hour long cooldowns on them. They probably thought it was better however to just keep them as fun items and just disable them where they cause the most damage.

Far more succinct than what I said. +1 for you.

Hoyvin.3241:

xxx.9514:

But Hoyvin, by your own argument, why would you need 5 Warriors?

Because, at this point, it does the most DPS of any class. I think for most people, who play the way the game is intended to be played, I don’t think this is much of an issue. It isn’t for me. I run with a small guild and we pretty much bring whichever toon we feel like playing.

I dunno, maybe I’m full of kitten. Just throwing out an idea.

I think a lot of the DPS that Warriors “have” is based on their might stacking. At least that’s what I’ve noticed in my PvP trials (which I know follow a different rule set than PvE, so I would have to do actual testing otherwise). But if both classes had 0 stacks of might, would a warrior outdo a thief? Remember there is a Rune set that provides 3 stacks of might and fury on heal. My assumption here was that would help “balance” thieves and warriors, but I have not tried this.

Hoyvin.3241:

I think it’s more about the players working through problems with the set of tools their given, and honestly, I think the use of consumables in dungeons is an oversight by A-Net. My guess is that they were never intended to be used in dungeons.

Healix.5819:

Dungeons weren’t designed with these items in mind, so they’re not balanced around having them. If you feel you need these items, then you’re either not doing the content at the intended difficulty or you’re not with a balanced group. These items can remove the need for people to actually specialize, in this case into defense/support, or remove the bonuses for bringing other classes. When specialization isn’t needed, the game turns into everyone wanting only the best DPS available, which usually results in 1 class becoming dominant overall.

To both Hoyvin and Healix, can you please provide via Official Forum’s search, ANet news, or even an interview with someone from ANet that proves dungeons were supposed to be designed sans consumable usage? I didn’t work too hard on finding this info because you seem to already know this for sure. Also, while you’re at it — Perhaps explain why they didn’t just remove all consumables including potions that are dropped in the dungeons, omnomberry bars, or ash legion spy kits? The kits especially. They totally could’ve just banned them from dungeons and left them be in PvE as well if all a “consumable” is for is just giggles.

I used a lot of em in Fractals. Mostly went with the following during boss battles

Mortar Seed Turret – Red Mortar or Yellow Mortar
Scale Venom
Depleted Power Crystal
Slayer Potions

I had these all up in addition to Oils and Food. The setup doesn’t work anymore

It was probably a smart change. It gave Ranger at least a (relatively minor, sure) reason to be. Ranger is fun and can clear content, but their utility to a group was lacking and having a consumable version of their only major utility is pretty stupid.

Honestly, I have a hard time understanding how you can complain about the state of thieves right now when there are people much worse off.

Good post xxx. Saved me the work.

xxx.9514:

To both Hoyvin and Healix, can you please provide via Official Forum’s search, ANet news, or even an interview with someone from ANet that proves dungeons were supposed to be designed sans consumable usage?

Of course not. I don’t think it exists. It’s just a suspicion. I certainly didn’t say that I knew anything for sure. Re-read my post. Why so hostile and snarky? But, if they’re working as intended, why ban them?

As far as food goes, they don’t reproduce a player skill, other than the boons they provide. They don’t provide teleportation or stealth and you can’t get a combo off the effects like a healing seed pod. Neither do the dungeon potions that drop.

They tweaked the food and they nerfed or banned the other consumables. Just added 2 and 2 and came up with 4.

Why didn’t they just ban them from dungeons? Dunno. Maybe they re-examined the whole thing and decided they were more trouble than they’re worth.

Actually, Rob did post somewhere in his history that he hated Spy Kits and Portal Guns and wanted them removed from dungeons. That made a pretty strong implication that they were not intended as part of dungeon design. Feel free to dive into his post history to find it.

Hoyvin.3241:

xxx.9514:

To both Hoyvin and Healix, can you please provide via Official Forum’s search, ANet news, or even an interview with someone from ANet that proves dungeons were supposed to be designed sans consumable usage?

Of course not. I don’t think it exists. It’s just a suspicion. I certainly didn’t say that I knew anything for sure. Re-read my post. Why so hostile and snarky? But, if they’re working as intended, why ban them?

As far as food goes, they don’t reproduce a player skill, other than the boons they provide. They don’t provide teleportation or stealth and you can’t get a combo off the effects like a healing seed pod. Neither do the dungeon potions that drop.

They tweaked the food and they nerfed or banned the other consumables. Just added 2 and 2 and came up with 4.

Why didn’t they just ban them from dungeons? Dunno. Maybe they re-examined the whole thing and decided they were more trouble than they’re worth.

Don’t take it too personally, the other guy said for sure “I know” so you should know that it was directed at him. I was just offering you the chance to respond as well since you mentioned it. I don’t have to re-read your post. Also calling someone “snarky/hostile” is usually a good way to MAKE them snarky and hostile But no worries, I can see there was some miscommunication there, Sorry.

And it’s great that you’re finally asking the right questions — There are a lot of things that were working as intended, I don’t think healing seeds were abused to the point that teleportation guns or spy kits were to be banned entirely. Do you? Have you witnessed situations like that? I mean these are questions I’m asking not to be hostile to you, but to help work on discussing the matters at hand.

And also to point out some other consumables, as previously mentioned there is a gun that exactly reproduces the Engineer’s “jump shot”, but surprisingly it is not banned. Perhaps you’re correct that they’ve simply not examined the issue entirely.

Rising Dusk.2408:

Actually, Rob did post somewhere in his history that he hated Spy Kits and Portal Guns and wanted them removed from dungeons. That made a pretty strong implication that they were not intended as part of dungeon design. Feel free to dive into his post history to find it.

I don’t know if I’ve said it already, but for the record: I thought those two were pretty unfair as well. But what do you think about adding extended cool downs to some consumables, such as the Gear — which would’ve normally provided a bouncing, perma “stun” to 5 targets; Grawl Totem — which would’ve normally provided a spammable aoe “fear”; or the Frost Gun — which would’ve normally provided a perma “chill” to (I believe) multiple targets?

Such things are clearly TOO powerful in their current state, but they’d be nifty skills to have available on perhaps a 60 second cool down? Would it really make the game that “unfair”? Perhaps so. Arguably 5 people, even with a 60 second cooldown, would be able to rotate through multiple items to keep them under “control”. I can see that argument.

I suppose perhaps that I’m not satisfied with the Patch Notes. But that’s a personal matter. Maybe I should try reaching out to ANet somehow to get a more official stance on this. Like are they thinking about re-implementing them later? Is this permanent? I don’t know! Hehe, time will tell I suppose

If Rob doesn’t respond to this thread, then he’s reading it but has nothing to say. I don’t think harassing him will help anyone in any way. That said, it seems like a fair extension of Rob’s distaste for Portal Guns and Spy Kits to extrapolate that to any of the other consumables that were removed. They must have been removed for the same reason, be that “too strong” or “removed class uniqueness” or whatever.

Anyway, I agree with what someone else said above. I think they afforded too much class versatility to classes who have otherwise very specific class roles, and negated the value of bringing the classes that pack those mechanics in the first place. I think this is a change for the better, despite that I now have stacks of these items I will doubtfully ever use.

I only wish they’d revert the change they made to Ash Legion Spy Kits in favor of just banning them from dungeons now that they have that tech. Seriously, I’d love to actually use them to stealth revive players in open-world PvE again. Make it happen, Rob!

xxx.9514:

Don’t take it too personally, the other guy said for sure “I know” so you should know that it was directed at him. I was just offering you the chance to respond as well since you mentioned it. I don’t have to re-read your post. Also calling someone “snarky/hostile” is usually a good way to MAKE them snarky and hostile But no worries, I can see there was some miscommunication there, Sorry.

Meh. It’s the internet. You can’t take anything personally here. No worries.

I don’t think there are too many things in the consumables category that are really very destructive, portal gun and spy kits being the worst offenders because they sort of remove the reason for including some unique skills from two specific classes. Seed pods, not so much, though I expect it’s the condition removal aspect and not the water field blast finisher that got them removed.

I’m just going to clear up that I didn’t mean to harass Rob. Or anyone from Anet for that matter. I didn’t even mean to harass any of the members here. Sorry if I did.

This last post helped me out the most. HELLruler.4820 read everything and was able to solve my issues (Jk.) But seriously, I’m ending this thread now. Thank you everyone.

Rising Dusk.2408:

Sericenthe.5310:

The game was supposed to allow 5 Engineers to be able to finish fractals. That was what we were sold, so there should be a way to do it.

There is a way to do FotM 48 with 5 Engineers without any consumable bar nourishments, you just need to be bloody good players to do it. The reason people take classes like Guardians and Mesmers in addition to their whatever class is because it makes everyone else’s job easier.

5 Engineers yes probably. 5 Eles u need godlike skillz if u went into Cliffside.

5 Thieves. Same godlike skillz for almost every fract at lvl 48.

If it’s possible to do with insane skill, then it is still possible to do.

Dungeons in this game have pis-poo-design anyway. They are linear, static pipes with so corny stories it just makes me feel sorry for whoever made them. Nobody I know likes doing them except for the money. Now that there are no consumables to play with, they are even worse. Sure yeah, its hell of a lots of fun to spam the same skills over and over like a braindead monkey, watching that red progressbar slowly turning into black.

Oh well, quess it’s still fun trying to hit new records on speed clearing of cof, until that fun gets nerffed too.

Indeed, I do think they were removed because they were fun. The dungeon content is trivial anyway (apart from some ridiculously high level fractals), so the reason for their removal can’t be that they were outbalanced. It’s also funny to see how much effort Anet spends to “fix” this kind of mariginal things, when the game would need new real content and when WvW has game breaking glitches. (Supermario clones or other jokes don’t count as real content btw)

I think anet should replace their dungeon designer team, because currently the dungeon content can’t compete at all with what other titles have to offer.

I like dungeons.

With that nerf anet made rangers useful, didn’t you guys see?
*laugh