Guild Wars 2

“So wait wait wait. You refuse to use them because they’re not “interesting or challenging from a tactical standpoint”, and then complain about dying?

Seriously, this can’t be real. You gotta be trolling."

Where did I say I refused to use them? The strawmans really rack up when you dare to criticize this game’s combat.

RebelYell.7132:

I know dodge gives invulnerability and that many professions have an ability (always on a non-trivial cooldown) that reflects or nullifies projectiles. That doesn’t mean I find them to be interesting or challenging from a tactical standpoint.

Gw2=/=other MMOs

there are ways to nullify damage, sometimes this requires group effort. Either learn how to play or continue to die repeately and “zerg” the bosses. If you want some help on some actual tactics I’m sure many people (myself included) can give you some pointers on how to play this game.

Well then sorry, but if you’re using them and still dying, while plenty of other people are having no issues whatsoever, I think the problem’s between the keyboard and the chair.

If it’s a damage field put it on the mob, boon/bonus field put it on allies. Nuff said

If I was dying a lot and I didn’t know why, I would post in Players Helping Players. I’m responding to the OP’s assertion that criticism of GW2 PvE mechanics = PEBKAC.

@helladoom
Switch utilities and elite skills to what the situation calls for. Switch the major traits around to other things that suit the dungeon or a group, you don’t necessarily have to reset all the points. There are support skills in every tree, you just have to find them. Hopefully everyone isnt running around full glass cannon without a single vitality or compassion trait whatsoever…if so don’t complain about dying in open world.

RebelYell.7132:

If I was dying a lot and I didn’t know why, I would post in Players Helping Players. I’m responding to the OP’s assertion that criticism of GW2 PvE mechanics = PEBKAC.

So your criticism that you don’t like them. oh ok. You don’t like combo fields so you shouldn’t have to use them. right. Well there’s no arguing with this profound logic.

I LIKE combo fields, they’re one of the best designed aspects of PvE.

What I’m discussing, is this:

“i see a lot of complaints about dungeon difficulty, button-mashing combat, shallow combat, weak builds, etc. i invite you to spend some time learning combo fields”

That’s a pretty huge variety of complaints, to be painted with the singular brush of ignorance.

If they were better implemented, more people would use them. If the majority of players are ignorant, that’s the fault of the game for not explaining itself well enough.

FarFarAway.6579:

If they were better implemented, more people would use them. If the majority of players are ignorant, that’s the fault of the game for not explaining itself well enough.

So you want your hand held basically? Heaven forbid we ever figure anything out on our own. Or you know look critically at something and solve the problem.

Combo fields are not unnecessary for the vast majority of content, but they sure do make difficult encounters more manageable.

RebelYell.7132:

I LIKE combo fields, they’re one of the best designed aspects of PvE.

What I’m discussing, is this:

“i see a lot of complaints about dungeon difficulty, button-mashing combat, shallow combat, weak builds, etc. i invite you to spend some time learning combo fields”

That’s a pretty huge variety of complaints, to be painted with the singular brush of ignorance.

I agree combo fields will not fix everyone’s problems. But if you have an explorable dungeon group and every member of the group is not: supporting, controlling, dpsing and comboing then your missing something.

Birdy.6085:

I agree, OP. Considering how long this game has been out, it’s disgusting that most players aren’t as pro as you already.

Maybe you should write a guide.

my post is about those who are complaining about dungeon difficulty and shallow combat, without having tried the combo fields.

FarFarAway.6579:

If they were better implemented, more people would use them. If the majority of players are ignorant, that’s the fault of the game for not explaining itself well enough.

i dont really care about people’s ignorance, as long as it’s kept to themselves.. i care about the condescending filth being spewed on these forums by whiners who arent bothering to learn the game.

I’m not sure why you singled out combos here. This whole game does a horrible job of explaining extremely important key concepts to the players. There are a truly staggering number of things I had to learn here on the forums and in the manual that should have been discussed in a tutorial or something. I knew about this deficit when I bought the game. It has been mentioned in several reviews.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not complaining. I put in the effort and learned a lot of stuff, and I think it’s a fun game. And you can’t beat the price.

But it’s not at all accessible to a casual player – even one who has played other MMOs, because this game is so different than other MMOs.

nerva.7940:

FarFarAway.6579:

If they were better implemented, more people would use them. If the majority of players are ignorant, that’s the fault of the game for not explaining itself well enough.

i dont really care about people’s ignorance, as long as it’s kept to themselves.. i care about the condescending filth being spewed on these forums by whiners who arent bothering to learn the game.

Preach it brother! Our only hope is that they will become so frustrated that they learn the game better. That or leave.

SheckyS.6241:

But it’s not at all accessible to a casual player – even one who has played other MMOs, because this game is so different than other MMOs.

the more advanced aspects of the game arent handed to you on a platter…it’s how it should be. the game asks of you to invest just a little bit of effort.

cmon guys, this is getting out of hand.

as it is now, you spam what you have and when there is a combo field you do a finisher in it. usually without a clue on what the effect will be.

this is an action game.
you usually cant even tell what is affecting you. its goes too fast and too flashy.
so dodge and do finishers in fields.
thats about it folks

for very well coordinated group, i guess they can have “group combos”;
same thing as a personal rotation, but with all the groups powers.
that would be optimal.

This involves knowing your class.

People want everything spoon fed to them.

How many threads have there been by button mashers complaining combat is too simple?

nerva.7940”

the more advanced aspects of the game arent handed to you on a platter…it’s how it should be. the game asks of you to invest just a little bit of effort.

I’m not talking about “advanced” aspects. I’m talking about incredible simple and basic concepts like dynamic events, the inventory system (collections), gathering, crafting, discovery. I had to read up on pretty much everything.

and combos are not an “advanced” aspect of the game. They are an integral part of the game’s combat system. And they are not so much as mentioned in -game at all.

Maybe, as you suggest, the game developers chose to do it this way for a reason. But whether they did it intentionally or not, this game does not teach you how to play it, and that is going to hurt it in the long run, because many players don’t have the patience to learn it on their own.

It’s interesting, too, that this game is not charging a monthly fee. So once you buy the game, they have pretty much gotten all the money they are going to get from most players. Sure, some people will buy additional stuff, but those will be the hard-core gamers who invest a lot of time and energy in the game. So maybe they don’t care too much about holding on to casual players, since there’s no real profit it.

Cloesd.3025:

Say I were to drop an Ethereal Combo field via Chaos storm.
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Chaos_Storm

Then someone were to use a blast finisher, to give AOE chaos armor:
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Chaos_Armor

This essentially means these effects are happening:

• You gain Swiftness
• You gain retaliation
• You gain Aegis (Avoids one attack)

Ontop of this you gain Chaos armor:
Which upon being hit gives you:

• Protection (33% damage reduction)
• Regeneration (390~ HP heal).
• Swiftness again.

Enemies that hit you get:

• Blindness
• Cripplied
• Chilled
• Weakness

All in all this combo field means that:

You move 33% faster, You reflect damage, block hits every few seconds, all hits that aren’t blocked are reduced by 33%, You heal 390 damage.

• The enemy is slowed by 50%
• Chilled so it’s speed decreases by 66% more
• It will miss it’s next attack (which you will avoid with aegis anyway)
• Any attacks it does land will do 50% damage, (further reduced by 33% due to protection).
• Finally the enemy will damage themselves due to confusion.

Overkill? Overly Complicated?

Couldn’t it simply be the target can’t attack for the next X seconds, you can’t be damaged while under the chaos storm. Targets are also slowed by 75%~.

Its part of the problem with the entire combat system really. Everything does a,e,i,o,u and sometimes y, instead of Fireball does 100 dmg plus 3 secs of burning. Now THAT’s intuitive. Whats not intuitive is… Your mark does X dmg, and gives you life, and causes weakness and 2 stacks of poison for X seconds AND you get weakened for 3 seconds, ….huh? what? Too much going on to be honest. Overly complicated for the sake of it.

Not intuitive at all.

Combo fields are great. As a Ranger I’m constantly repositioning myself to fire thru them during DEs. I use Healing Spring too because it’s a combo field. I use sword/torch because I like the fire aura I get with leaping into fire fields (boar pets leap too).

Did not read through the whole thread but you know whta would be great? an overview of possible combos ingame. Maybe as soon as you discover them by accident. Based on your weapons and those of the other classes. Maybe like the weapon skill overview.

You simply cannot force people to search 3rd party web pages for info on this. And is has to work in PUGs, not only in 5-men-TS-guild-groups.

I think a tab added to the hero pane would be a neat addition.Just a little tab that lists the combo fields you have interacted with,what skills caused that field,what skill finished it….things like that.Kind of a running journal of combo’s you have been a part of and a just a small bit of tutorial text on what combo’s are and how to find out more.

They could even add a daily/monthly achievement for combo interactions if they wanted too.

AndyPandy.3471:

Thats also what i noticed, ae “blast” heals and blinds really outperform most other combo fields, especially if u stack a bunch of guardians/wars in front of a WvW door :p

Oh yay, further pigeonholed into GS.

And this is where ArenaNet’s philosophy “we will not force feed people with tutorials” fails. Combo fields are one of the biggest parts of a combat system. Combat system that is very limited and in a lot of ways, not fun or challenging.
Doing combos does help in making combat more interesting, but knowledge about them is so scarce (even wiki) that it feels like some added meta game you have to finish before you can enjoy GW2 combat.
And how to learn about them? Very difficult. It would be very helpful if ANet made more NPCs in starting areas that had same skills as our classes do. That way we could do combos with NPCs and learn in this way. There are some, but not enough of them.
And second biggest hurdle to learning about combos is graphical design of combat itself. Even 3 different players fighting the same enemy make the area around this enemy so visually full of different rings, sparkles, splashes and all other efects, its almost impossible to see combo starters. So even if you see you made a combo with someone, you don’t know who with. Or what they used as a combo starter. How do you learn like that?

When running highly populated DE’s on my Guardian 2 of my 3 utility slots are fire fields (the other being judges intervention for mobility / area damage).

i agree with DusK.

I personally think people just need practice, the fact this game doesnt hand a cookie-cuttie esque spec to the player son a silver platter is a good thing in itself.

however what anoys me is when i use /s when im putting a combo field down in random sPvP or PvE and people take no notice of it whatsoever, it effectivly halves the skills use, hell in one dungeon some player moved around and away from it so the he had 0 effect on it….argh.

It would be good if the game told you more obviously where and how to activate them. I’m level 80 and have only activated a couple of combo fields ever, and never on purpose…

I love it when i drop my combustive shot skill on my warrior and see all the burning popup things flying during big events.

I donno if anyone posted this yet as i just skimmed the thread but here is a link to the official wiki about combos and how to do each one. http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Combo