Guild Wars 2

Sorry if this was answered the the livestream (saw it, but don’t remember seeing anything about this in it) but is the Tablet you get with the Ventari Legend something your enemies can target and destroy, or is it more like an indestructible marker of where all your Ventari skills and effects will be centered at?

Kinda wonder what the counterplay might be for this might be, whether I could destroy the tablet and force the Revenant to spend time/energy resummoning, or peel the enemy team away from the thing so they can’t benefit from it.

karl said you can’t attack it.

Shouldn’t be. It’s more like a Banner, that exists at a location and does stuff, but can’t be directly dealt with.

Roy Cronacher.1576:

The heal skill which moves the tablet is ground targeted, so you select the location to move it too.

The tablet, right now, cannot be damaged or destroyed. It’s there as a skillful delivery mechanic for all the skills as well as a way to display ‘tells’.

Thanks for the answer!

They’d basically ruin it if they made it attackable. It would never last where it’s needed and would make it not worth the extra effort of keeping an eye on it.

very good…..and also the expected answer…..since killing it would remove all your Vent utilities

I wonder how this will change.

Because remember Guardian Weapons were non-targetable at first as well, but we saw how that went.

Problem is, the Tablet is a major part of this legend. By making it killable, you basically ruin 1/4 of the Revenant’s skills making Centaur Legend useless.

there is a thin line here.

The Tablet has to be strong, or this legend is useless. and the tablet cant be too strong or you will get massive QQ like Guardians got…

Meanwhile, ranger spirits are still the only supportive totem skill with ample vulnerability to all kinds of attacks and zergs.

I hope that and the pet policy gets revised…..real soon. It’d be nice for them to not be totally kitten in any serious content.

Zenith.7301:

Meanwhile, ranger spirits are still the only supportive totem skill with ample vulnerability to all kinds of attacks and zergs.

I hope that and the pet policy gets revised…..real soon. It’d be nice for them to not be totally kitten in any serious content.

you compare apples with bananas.
The only invulnerable “totems” in this game are banners, and they grant nothing but stat-boosts or dmg (90 sec cd) / rezz (240sec cd) on impact

turrets buff players as well, but attack on the same time – damageable.
minions don’t buff players, but can heal their owner and attack on the same time – damageable.
spirit-weapons can either attack or cc and heal allies on the same time -damageable.
clones and phantasms can attack players, and be shattered to trigger other offensive effects – damageable.
thiefs guild – damageable.
elementals – damagable

and now spirits: grant offensive or defensive, unique boons and can attack players directly via command abilitys – damagable. After the patch they will not be able to move anymore, still they have direct offensive capabilities.
banners do not. They can’t move on their own, they must be picked up.
ventaries tablet also does not. It also can’t move on its own, but must be commanded to follow the player, and will even despawn if people run off.

Spirits do work as intended. Deal with it.

Arantheal.7396:

Zenith.7301:

Meanwhile, ranger spirits are still the only supportive totem skill with ample vulnerability to all kinds of attacks and zergs.

I hope that and the pet policy gets revised…..real soon. It’d be nice for them to not be totally kitten in any serious content.

you compare apples with bananas.
The only invulnerable “totems” in this game are banners, and they grant nothing but stat-boosts or dmg (90 sec cd) / rezz (240sec cd) on impact

turrets buff players as well, but attack on the same time – damageable.
minions don’t buff players, but can heal their owner and attack on the same time – damageable.
spirit-weapons can either attack or cc and heal allies on the same time -damageable.
clones and phantasms can attack players, and be shattered to trigger other offensive effects – damageable.
thiefs guild – damageable.
elementals – damagable

and now spirits: grant offensive or defensive, unique boons and can attack players directly via command abilitys – damagable. After the patch they will not be able to move anymore, still they have direct offensive capabilities.
banners do not. They can’t move on their own, they must be picked up.
ventaries tablet also does not. It also can’t move on its own, but must be commanded to follow the player, and will even despawn if people run off.

Spirits do work as intended. Deal with it.

So full of it lol. The stat bonuses from banners override the bonuses of spirits in PvE (as in, they give a greater damage bonus), and they are portable without traiting. The activated abilities are garbage in PvE, nobody uses them.

Guess how many of your wonderful examples actually are used in PvE with frequency.

Here’s a hint, WvW/SpVp zergling, not the summons with HP bars that serve as aoe 2-shot bait.

Not that spirits, or turrets, or minions, or spirit weapons are used much in most areas of the game. Turrets are a spvp hotjoin fixture, with barely any presence in tournaments and like all other HP summons extinct in both WvW and PvE.

Also, just for record keeping, spirits don’t move unless you go up to a grandmaster slot. Gutting all your offensive capacity and putting them in 1 shot territory more often than not as you don’t want the spirits following you into melee where most of the cleaving/aoe happens.

The ventari tablet is not meant to be a minion mechanic, so comparing it to spirits, turrets or the like makes no sense and is off-topic.

The tablet is just a vehicle that marks where your utility spells will trigger. It’s not very different than the simple concept of ground-targetted skills, except it is more elaborated and unique in order to offer a more unique playstyle. Just because it has a physical appearance, it does not automatically makes it a minion mechanic.

Zenith.7301:

Arantheal.7396:

Zenith.7301:

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Who cares about PvE anyways when it comes to discussing AI?
PvE is solely dominated by the zerker meta, and no AI has a spot there since it potentially breaks the stack. This is why people in general rahter not have rangers in their group, since you always have the chance to meet a dumb one that can’t set his pet on passive and therefore kittens up the whole run constantly.
Banners are not AI, as in they don’t decide what to target / where to move to. They don’t break a stack, they don’t pull unintended, they are entirely passive. If banners would do this, they would be gone from the warri PvE meta in no time, but not replaced by spirits or other AI, since AI in general is the last thing you want to have in dungeons.

- So, buff spirits equally to or beyond banners?
Wouldn’t change the fact that no one will like them in PvE, and just make them OP in PvP – again.

- Make them invulnerable?
Since when are permanently invulnerable, player-created objects allowed to damage players? Also Banners have better buffs.

- Do both?
Why? we already have banners. Why not give banners to all classes then?

It doesn’t matter how you twist and turn, you compare apples with bananas.
Spirits are AI – therefore a PvP only thing – and in a reasonable spot as such.
Banners are not AI, but AoE buffs, and in a quite powerful (since monopole) position as such. Btw, have you ever seen any warri that was running any banner beyond war-banner in PvP? or in WvW? There banners are as non-viable as AI in general is in PvE.
And spirits were in the meta not long ago, and still are a resonable, but weak, option to take, despite their passive nature and falsely perceived parallels to the seemingly far more powerful banners.

Again, banners and spirits have nothing in comparison, not even the game-modes they are viable or welcome in.

Arantheal.7396:

Zenith.7301:

Arantheal.7396:

Zenith.7301:

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Who cares about PvE anyways when it comes to discussing AI?
PvE is solely dominated by the zerker meta, and no AI has a spot there since it potentially breaks the stack. This is why people in general rahter not have rangers in their group, since you always have the chance to meet a dumb one that can’t set his pet on passive and therefore kittens up the whole run constantly.
Banners are not AI, as in they don’t decide what to target / where to move to. They don’t break a stack, they don’t pull unintended, they are entirely passive. If banners would do this, they would be gone from the warri PvE meta in no time, but not replaced by spirits or other AI, since AI in general is the last thing you want to have in dungeons.

- So, buff spirits equally to or beyond banners?
Wouldn’t change the fact that no one will like them in PvE, and just make them OP in PvP – again.

- Make them invulnerable?
Since when are permanently invulnerable, player-created objects allowed to damage players? Also Banners have better buffs.

- Do both?
Why? we already have banners. Why not give banners to all classes then?

It doesn’t matter how you twist and turn, you compare apples with bananas.
Spirits are AI – therefore a PvP only thing – and in a reasonable spot as such.
Banners are not AI, but AoE buffs, and in a quite powerful (since monopole) position as such. Btw, have you ever seen any warri that was running any banner beyond war-banner in PvP? or in WvW? There banners are as non-viable as AI in general is in PvE.
And spirits were in the meta not long ago, and still are a resonable, but weak, option to take, despite their passive nature and falsely perceived parallels to the seemingly far more powerful banners.

Again, banners and spirits have nothing in comparison, not even the game-modes they are viable or welcome in.

I care about PvE. You know, why design a bunch of utilities nobody will want to use. Spirit rangers aren’t even a thing in spvp ever since they got gutted.

Spirits are glorified banners that need a trait to be portable and can be attacked. Spirits hurt nobody. You keep saying that, but the only spirit that HARMS is the storm spirit’s activated ability, which nobody outside spvp uses, because swiftness in combat is pretty useless when an elementalist is activating it for the group without sacrificing a utility slot or having to trait heavily for it, as can warriors and guardians.

You are calling my argument contorted? That AI are only for spvp consideration? What is wrong with you? It’s you spvp people who have been whining all year until rangers got nerfed because you hate AI. Ranger pets got nerfed, spirits got nerfed, and rangers were already weak in PvE!

I guess since AI is designed solely for spvp purposes, we might as well banish mesmers and rangers to spvp land because they sure as hell don’t belong to PvE by your standards.

Apples and bananas has got to be the most tired line when someone comes into a thread wanting to defend their pet classes against comparison that points out flaws and weaknesses other classes suffer that limit their represenation and gameplay in many game formats.

And since you’ve admitted caring very little about how mechanisms don’t function in PvE and they shouldn’t be fixed because you don’t care about them and clearly the world revolves around what you judge to be worthy of fixing, I think my conversation with you is done.

i have questing too when 2 revenant cast tablet will tablet got any sigh like minion (guild) at name or how can i see my tablet and other or enemy tablet?

Zenith.7301:

Arantheal.7396:

Zenith.7301:

Arantheal.7396:

Zenith.7301:

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One baseless assumption after another.
1st: I play all game modes, WvW, Pve and sPvP. When you want to quote me, do it correctly. I wrote "Who cares about PvE anyways when it comes to discussing AI?
2nd: I don’t particularly care about warrior, nor guardian, nor ele. My main is engineer, and seeing turreteers in dungeons lets me cringe as hard as meeting spirit rangers there.
3rd: It doesn’t matter how good or bad spirits/turrets/minions/spirit-weapons are, they are targetable AI, hence mobs will eventually go after them, therefore they are terribad when you want to stack
4th: Rangers can set their pet on passive while stacking (and should do so) / Mesmers can spawn their clones inside the stack, therefore it’s not necessary to shun them out of Dungeons. Now if clones would run all over the place and pets would always be aggressive, that would be exactly the moment when I’d insta-kick both classes right away.

Banners don’t draw aggro.
Spirits do.
Hence spirits will always be useless in PvE, regardless how over-buffed they get.
Period.

To change that, a-net would need to completely redesign spirits, to become intargetable, unable to do direct dmg (which also includes applying condis, debuffing, interfering with foes in any manner), OR update their NPC-AI to not attack player-spawned AI per default, which would also open gates for AI builds in dungeons (even tho they’d perform horrible and then get hated for that when que’ing up, but w/e)

The tablet is terrible. There’s very little wifi inside Guild Wars 2, and it doesn’t even have Snapchat. How am I supposed to support my allies without sending captioned pictures of myself making silly expressions?

On another note, imagine these things flying around in a wvw zerg.

Cecilia.5179:

The tablet is terrible. There’s very little wifi inside Guild Wars 2, and it doesn’t even have Snapchat. How am I supposed to support my allies without sending captioned pictures of myself making silly expressions?

On another note, imagine these things flying around in a wvw zerg.

If we imagine huge pugs with revenants organized to support with the Tablet, you can stay assured the fights will be all forced to melee because of the upkeep dome which destroys projectiles that can be rotated and moved.

Syrpharon.7491:

If we imagine huge pugs with revenants organized to support with the Tablet, you can stay assured the fights will be all forced to melee because of the upkeep dome which destroys projectiles that can be rotated and moved.

Arantheal.7396:

Zenith.7301:

Arantheal.7396:

Zenith.7301:

Arantheal.7396:

Zenith.7301:

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One baseless assumption after another.
1st: I play all game modes, WvW, Pve and sPvP. When you want to quote me, do it correctly. I wrote "Who cares about PvE anyways when it comes to discussing AI?
2nd: I don’t particularly care about warrior, nor guardian, nor ele. My main is engineer, and seeing turreteers in dungeons lets me cringe as hard as meeting spirit rangers there.
3rd: It doesn’t matter how good or bad spirits/turrets/minions/spirit-weapons are, they are targetable AI, hence mobs will eventually go after them, therefore they are terribad when you want to stack
4th: Rangers can set their pet on passive while stacking (and should do so) / Mesmers can spawn their clones inside the stack, therefore it’s not necessary to shun them out of Dungeons. Now if clones would run all over the place and pets would always be aggressive, that would be exactly the moment when I’d insta-kick both classes right away.

Banners don’t draw aggro.
Spirits do.
Hence spirits will always be useless in PvE, regardless how over-buffed they get.
Period.

To change that, a-net would need to completely redesign spirits, to become intargetable, unable to do direct dmg (which also includes applying condis, debuffing, interfering with foes in any manner), OR update their NPC-AI to not attack player-spawned AI per default, which would also open gates for AI builds in dungeons (even tho they’d perform horrible and then get hated for that when que’ing up, but w/e)

Please, they don’t need to do any of that; they just need to make stacking not work. Stacking isn’t how dungeons were meant to work, they’re not how the combat system was meant to work, and getting rid of it opens large amounts of build diversity.

The fact that minions can draw aggro doesn’t make a lick of difference if the mobs won’t clump for melee cleave or aoe cc, as long as they’re only drawing aggro after the players do. It can potentially become beneficial if they’re drawing away otherwise unavoidable damage because you can’t CC your targets and kill them before the CC wears off anymore. Minions, pets, spirits, and turrets drawing aggro is only bad because stacking and the current meta exists the way it does.

Syrpharon.7491:

Cecilia.5179:

The tablet is terrible. There’s very little wifi inside Guild Wars 2, and it doesn’t even have Snapchat. How am I supposed to support my allies without sending captioned pictures of myself making silly expressions?

On another note, imagine these things flying around in a wvw zerg.

If we imagine huge pugs with revenants organized to support with the Tablet, you can stay assured the fights will be all forced to melee because of the upkeep dome which destroys projectiles that can be rotated and moved.

I assume the projectile destruction follows the same rules as other projectile destruction effects in the game, and doesn’t apply to ground targeted abilities. Staff Ele and staff Necro will pretty much ignore it’s existence (the Necro will fear you out of the bubble even). You can also get taunted out of the bubble.

But it’ll make positioning matter more; if there’s no way to flank or surround, the effectiveness becomes a lot greater. It’s still not going to be nearly as effective as the shield generator even then, though, so I don’t think it’ll matter that much to zerg balance.

Eolirin.1830:

The fact that minions can draw aggro doesn’t make a lick of difference if the mobs won’t clump for melee cleave or aoe cc, as long as they’re only drawing aggro after the players do. It can potentially become beneficial if they’re drawing away otherwise unavoidable damage because you can’t CC your targets and kill them before the CC wears off anymore. Minions, pets, spirits, and turrets drawing aggro is only bad because stacking and the current meta exists the way it does.

I mostly agree with this. Saying it’s the only reason these things don’t work is a stretch, but it is a big factor. I’m also guessing it’s very difficult to fix, sadly.

Eolirin.1830:

Syrpharon.7491:

Cecilia.5179:

The tablet is terrible. There’s very little wifi inside Guild Wars 2, and it doesn’t even have Snapchat. How am I supposed to support my allies without sending captioned pictures of myself making silly expressions?

On another note, imagine these things flying around in a wvw zerg.

If we imagine huge pugs with revenants organized to support with the Tablet, you can stay assured the fights will be all forced to melee because of the upkeep dome which destroys projectiles that can be rotated and moved.

I assume the projectile destruction follows the same rules as other projectile destruction effects in the game, and doesn’t apply to ground targeted abilities. Staff Ele and staff Necro will pretty much ignore it’s existence (the Necro will fear you out of the bubble even). You can also get taunted out of the bubble.

But it’ll make positioning matter more; if there’s no way to flank or surround, the effectiveness becomes a lot greater. It’s still not going to be nearly as effective as the shield generator even then, though, so I don’t think it’ll matter that much to zerg balance.

Yup. Now that I think about it, theywon’t stop siege weapons neither.
Anet, maybe it’s time to make even AoE projectile stoppable. Make those rangers cry.

Syrpharon.7491:

Eolirin.1830:

Syrpharon.7491:

Cecilia.5179:

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Keep in mind that the meta is player-made and exists for 2 reasons:
A) Because the AI reacts as it does.
B) People will always look out for the way with the least resistance.

The zerker meta exists because no other equip-choice is viable for the 2 roles that actually exist in the meta: Pure dps & support.
- Healing skills scale horribly with healing power.
- Toughness & vitality do not protect from 1-hit kills (which high-lvl fractals and arah along with other dungeons are full of).
- boon duration can only be achieved with runes and trait-choices
Hence even support builds are shunned into choosing zerk/assassin since there is literally no gain from other stat-combos in PVE (except for world-bosses that can’t be crited, where the meta is Soldier equip)

And stacking is the most viable way since it ensures that every aoe hits the target for its full dmg, defensive aoe-skills reach all party-members and dmg from many bosses can be distributed more easily since many of them have a 3-target cap.
This is why stacking is the most effective way, hence uncontrollably AI that draws aggro, and therefore breaks the stack is the worst thing possible.

Even if A-net decides to upgrade their AI so it runs away from pilled up players, this will just lead to moving stacks of players that will run after the boss, until he’s cornered and then position in a narrow half-circle to keep him in place and proceed with aoe-stacking and aoe-support.

And other games are no different.
When it comes to raid content, the most popular (and arguably best) realization is WoW, and even there players develop the optimal positioning withing weeks after content-release to find the best tanking spot, the best spot for the healer-camp and the best spot for the dps-camp. And the only times they move is if these camps are subject to heavy incoming dps or if a phase-change requires new permanent positions.
While other games will have 2, 3 or maybe even 4 camps for certain bosses, we usually just have 1, which is not better, nor worse. It’s simply the most efficient way to handle the encounters in Gw2.

AI messes with that. Just imagine what would happen in WoW if a warlock or hunter pet were able to draw aggro frequently from the tank. The responsible player would be asked to despawn / change his pet, or simply get kicked from the raid.
The exact same thing happens to players in Gw2 if they refuse to listen to the will of the majority of their fellow party-members, hence they behave egoistical and deserve the kick.
It’s no-ones fault to be new, and I always ask politely if someone needs a explanation for the dungeon when they have low AP. This noob protection is off for me personally when a guy has more than 1.5k AP, because I refuse to waste time with a special snowflake, when I could have finished the dungeon in the time it would have took to make him listening.
Hence I kick AI-builds and move on. When you’ve done dungeons for the 200th time (and more) they’ve lost all their entertaining value, and are nothing but a quick and easy gold-grind, so if I meet people who mess up intentionally by bringing stupid builds to pug-dungeons, all I can say is time is gold, and they’re wasting mine.

When it comes to equip, I really don’t care if they run zerker or not since I usually can carry any group and solo bosses if necessary, I myself f.e. run defender runes since they come with awesome synergy to all the guardians you meet, so I don’t usually run pure meta-builds.
And most groups I’ve met rarely if ever get anal if a boss is not melting within seconds, so the “meta” [In the gaming world. The meta is what is in RIGHT NOW. What are the best strategies, plays, options.. Things of that nature. Often referred to as “Meta-Game”] in Gw2 is much friendlier as in WoW and similar games, where gearchecks, dps-tests and whatnot are widely distributed things and the common standard that every player has to pass before they are allowed in organized raids.

The difference between being a bit more tanky than necessary and AI builds is the following: one slows down the group a bit, the other kittens it up.

Ventari could still use some work

Kaizoku.1298:

Ventari could still use some work

Are you sure you are in the right subforum?
I believe you were looking for this

On a serious note if you want to partake in balance discussion burtniks thread

kitten it, I got excited when I saw a red post and realized it’s just a necro’d old post

TheBravery.9615:

kitten it, I got excited when I saw a red post and realized it’s just a necro’d old post

Yep. Comms from anet devs are that bad.