Guild Wars 2

I’d like to start by saying please understand this is the perspective from a returning player and not that of a GW2 lifer (non-stop dedication since beta).

I’ve noticed a number of pretty troubling issues that really detract from the enjoyment and potential this game could have. Hopefully I can keep this simple and to the point:

1) Grouping without a dedicated Guild is a horrible experience all around. Pretty much all groups are “Zerker, exp” or kicked. The simple fact that most groups require 1 specific set of gear is pretty bad. The fact that the game and content is designed around allowing that to even happen is pretty bad.

2) Several classes are frowned upon or outright kicked from a majority of groups (Necro and Ranger are primary two examples). While these classes are capable, they are typically frowned upon or kicked because they are outdone by other classes in MANY ways. It’s pretty bad design and balance if class is considered sub-par compared to all others. You shouldn’t be required to find a guild that will accept you as the “special boy” and allow you to play these classes.

3) Conditions. These are considered (and are) almost completely worthless in WvW and most other places as well. Simply put, it’s too easy to completely negate/remove them constantly and the time it takes to build up damage with them means the fight is already over. Honestly, based on current design, they either need to stack faster or be harder to remove (IE, removing numbers from the stack not the entire stack itself).

4) Many classes have completely useless abilities that no builds anywhere ever utilize. Engineers for example have several kits that simply never show up in community builds because they under perform vs others in every way. Necro has many skills that simply fall behind right from the start. Really, all classes do.

5) Necro Pets are barely useful in very select situations. They make the player a massive aggro magnet and puts the necro in combat (slow run) constantly. In PvP/WvW they generally get instantly killed doing no damage and leaving the necro with only their weapon skills to fight. In PvE they’re only generally useful in Solo content (if that) as again, they get instantly killed. I’m still not sure why Arena Net hasn’t realized that (like every other game) pets cannot take full damage from AOE attacks because they cannot avoid them. It’s even worse considering the player has 0 control over these. I know this is a specific class issue but I have the most experience with Necro and it was pretty sad to realize how useless these were.

6) Limit to no community involvement from Arena Net (developers). While I don’t have a lot of experience on this, it seems like the developers have almost no community involvement and feedback programs. You can see constant complaints and issues posted and no weekly discussion from the devs explaining why they aren’t fixing something… or letting people know it’s on the list and will be fixed. I’m sorry to say this but Blizzard (WoW) does a really good job of staying active with the community. People might not like decisions they make, but at least they’re talking with their players about them.

I think many of your concerns have changed, or will change shortly.

Welcome return.

1) 2) Zerker is the most efficient way of clearing 3 year old content atm, if you don;t want to join a certain type of group make your own in LFG and say “all welcome” or whatever setup you like.

3) Conditions are powerful in WvW and PvP and quite a few builds are almost equivalent to Zerker in PvE now.

4) Useless for some things, useful for other. Engineer Kits have had every single one of them used in a meta PvP build at one point or another since launch (this is the only real knowledge I have with Engi builds, anyone who knows how they are in PvE can add more below).

5) Necro pets actually were/are used in low rank(ish) PvP, actually my firend’s group won a community tournament with 2 MMs on their team (2k gems + Llama for each of them). I think MMs also won quite a few 1v1 and 2v2 tournaments. I’m not saying they are good for everywhere at all skill levels but they aren’t 100% useless.

6) If you pop down to the Profession forums atm you’ll see great discussions and dev input about the current upcoming Elite Specialisations – I just keep track of the Mesmer one but friends tell me other Profs are having good interaction too. Yes, people can always want more communication and sometimes it definitely should be there and isn’t, I guess it just depends on how difficult it will be to give reasoning to certain people (you know the ones I mean – who could be shown perfect reasoning and still argue against it on forums cuz internetz).

That will be fun.

1) At best, around 1/3 of the LFG ask for zerker or something like that. So please don’t imagine a problem just because you don’t like a situation. Yes zerker is predominate and you can find that bad. I’m playing the game for the last 3 years and I went into a maybe 3-4 LFG with zerker requirement. I’m a zerker myself and prefer to play with zerker (or sinister), but saying that ALL LFG or that the MAJORITY of them are zerker is just a plain lie and don’t serve your point by sapping your own credibility.

Now as for the gear diversity. There is argument on both side. Personnally, they could remove the gear all together if they want. I prefer gameplay diverisity with weapons, skill and trait over gear diversity. But that’s just my opinion.

2) You are right. Engineer, Ranger and Necro were in that situation. Engineer is now in a good place and don’t have this problem anymore. Ranger is also in a good place but for other reason people don’t like them. Mostly because LB and Pet can make things go bad in the wrong hands. Still, kicking or asking for no ranger is more and more rare. I didn’t saw that in a very long time. It’s almost non issue now and will fix itself over time. Now for Necro you are totally right and it’s all on Anet fault.

3) Did you played the game in the last couple of months? Yes conditions were in a very bad place, but the situation was mostly fixed a couple of months back with the condition update. I’m not saying that the situation all good. Bleed is still lagging behind and there is plenty of PvE encounter where condition is at a disadvantage, while situation where direct damage is at a disadvantage is really really rare. Please don’t say that that condition is useless almost everywhere when the highest dps build in PvE is a condition build and that 3 of the most powerful build is sPvP are either condition hybrid or strait condition build. Maybe the situation is bad in WvW, I didn’t play there for a long time.

4) True. But all game have them and I really don’t think that it’s a huge problem in GW2. Keep in mind that you maybe don’t know everything. For exemple, you talk about engineer kit’s. But the only kit that no popular build use is med kit. Every single kit except med kit is use in a META build. So ya this problem exist, but I don’t think that they can make everything good. And the fact that you pointed in a skill type that is actually in a really good place right now, make me doudt your knowledge of the game.

Keep in mind that I’m not saying that you are wrong about the problem. Anet should work on making more and more skill good. But the problem isn’t relatively small and physically can’t be fix 100% anyway.

5) Minions master in PvP is pretty decent. Not one of the best build, but in the right hand id can hold it’s own. You are right that minion need some help, but why would you put that in a list of problem with GW2 before Spirit Weapon for exemple? Minion have a couple place where you can be good with them, not spirit weapons.

6) True and False. They were more active at the beginning but that bite them in the kitten so they decided to tune that back down a it. Also a lot of the complaint in the forum are from people that didn’t search for very long. Anet won’t answer a question 1000 times because 1000 people ask the same freaking question. The game is 3 years old so there is a long list of question that Anet already answered and won’t answer again. But you are right, Anet isn’t as active as other company. Maybe it’s because GW2 don’t have a montly fee to pay the staff, I don’t know. Some people complain about it, other don’t care, but I guess that the majority of us just learn to live with it.

1 + 2) Create your own LFG, the reason you see mostly zerker only is because any lfg thats not picky about stats tends to fill quickly.

3) Conditions are overpowered in pvp against certain classes (and burning against most), wvw: necro wells are required by many wvw groups… also a quick check on metabattle shows multiple condi builds in the top tiers.

4) all skills have some use in certain areas of the game, not all skills will be the best for all content. the only skills i can think of that have basically no use anywhere is the engi’s turrets as they are now only of use for afk’ing near world bosses (they used to be good in pvp until they got nerfed into oblivion due to constant complaining on the forums)

5) Necro MM are very prevalent in pvp, especially sinc ethe bug with traits during downstate got fixed. I’ve ran an MM for years in pvp whenever I’m on my necro with a lot of success.

If fractal bosses after a certain point didn’t one shot full soldier geared warriors defeating the purpose of that armor set big time then people wouldn’t need to ask for zerker.

The first point is not an issue. Just get zerker gear and you are finlne.

For the rest, as a main necro player, I wouldn’t agree more. The reason are pretty simple, ranger and necro are not bad/worse than others, they just have not group support. Dungeons and fractals and wvw are group content, so there is a need that each class adds some support to the group. That could be easily solved if (for example) necro would get a traut to stack might or one to create stability, etc.
Comditions itself got a lot better since last major update, they are fine. (Of course you should play zerker and not a condition statt build, that still is luckly worse.)

About the necro minions… Well after 3 years it would already be a big wonder if these at least would attack while you attack something…

Thanks for all the responses.

For those who say “get zerker gear” that’s exactly what i’m complaining about. The fact that you’re often forced into it. Yes, you can make your own groups and kitten yourself… But the game is currently designed so that one or so very specific builds and gear sets is the strongest in almost all content. The argument of “3 year old content” doesn’t hold true unless ALL content is 3 years old which is a pretty sad statement. I honestly don’t know what is considered “new” content but so far everything I’ve encountered and a vast majority of LFG groups require zerker and a pretty high number are kicking ranger/necro for one reason or another.

As for Condi being good, I’m not sure how else to respond? It’s pretty obvious playing in larger group content situations that your conditions are constantly removed. In WvW they almost instantly go away. In small PvP matches it’kitten or miss depending on the match-up and the number of people in each fight. This is the entire issue… Purge damage builds are good in all situations as you can’t “clear” them and they take no time to build up. I’m going to switch to Condi build on my necro and do a lot more testing but so far it’s been pretty bad compared to straight damage. Reading on the forum and chatting with various guilds pretty much say the same thing. Condi in 5v5 or larger situations is just bad.