Guild Wars 2

Thank you for providing us additional info. Others experiencing this frustrating “I’m not getting your mails” situation: Please post your ticket number. We’re working on this!

Thanks.

Draygo.9473:

OK

I just sent an email to the ticketing system (#49608 you can close it) and checked the header of the return email:

Received-SPF: softfail (transitioning domain of guildwars2.com does not designate 50.57.4.208 as permitted sender)

The support emails are still failing the SPF check. This should get resolved and should help clear up a lot of the fraud flags!

Whoever is in charge of setting up the SPF record for guildwars2.com needs to correct it to allow those servers to send mail on behalf of guildwars2.com.

BTW, this is very helpful, as are the full headers that folks are getting me.

Conncept.7638:

Chris Whiteside.6102:

Conncept.7638:

BobbyStein.2315:

It’s more a matter of finishing what we started, implementing what we’ve already designed, and setting the game up for the next arc…

Why couldn’t the design team have this attitude when they attempted and failed to expand on the event system? I swear it seems like they barely even tried…

Hi Conncept,

Can you provide some more details please in order to add more value to the discussion. Can you explain what you mean by attempted and failed to expand on the event system? Where do you think we failed and what do you see as success?

Chris

Sure. A short time in to the games release, before the LS, the developers stated that they wished to spend development time and resources expanding on the existing ‘core’ event system over the whole game world, everybody loved the idea and I haven’t seen players so excited since. Note that when it was announced existing events was the wording used.

Cue the Modus Secleris events. While they did have some interesting combat mechanics they didn’t scale properly, and had no story; but more importantly they (and whatever events were implemented with them, players still don’t know what those 60 events were) couldn’t be found by any method except scouring the entire bleeding world, and none were in any way related to the existing event, stories, characters, and areas we loved and were hoping to see expanded. They were just… there… they could have been placed anywhere in the world without actually feeling like they were part of the world.

In short, the design team completely botched it. What was implemented was not what players wanted or had in mind when they asked for expansion on the DE system.

And then seemingly without any feedback whatsoever, from which they may have concluded that these events failed for reasons that could be easily addressed in even a single subsequent attempt, the expanding of the event system just seemed to piddle off as southsun came and went, hard-stopped for the holidays, and a few months later the LS started with its temporary content and side-story rather than the expansion of the core content and existing stories I believe most players hoped for.

What I believe players wanted can be summed up as: Expansions on the existing stories and event mechanics already within the world, to the end that these stories feel more alive, expanding outward based on more advanced event mechanics, more story steps, leading to more varied story steps, player choice, and player success or failure. That expansion can come by way of the LS updates, or just retcons of new content into existing areas.

I don’t want to see a giant tower out of nowhere on the front lines of the war with the centaurs nearly as much as I would like to actually see the story of the war with the centaurs. I don’t want to see the dredge and flame legions ‘powers combined’ as much as I would like to see the stories which the flame legion and the dredge are already a part of continued. Tyria already felt like a living world on release, those feelings just needed to be continued, but were instead diverged away from, and in some cases wholly ignored.

(Sorry I’m saying ‘them’ as if you aren’t part of the conversation but I have no idea if you were a part of the team of developers at the time or not)

Thanks for the info. I will have a think.

Chris

Doh, you’re right. I was looking at the first step in the story. (Same name, different NPC.) To reach Gallant’s Folly, you can go through the Iron Marches and totally avoid Frostgorge.

titanlectro.5029:

I promise you that Devon is looking at all of these metrics and measurements you are theorizing RIGHT NOW, he just doesn’t share them with you.

This is literally true. We don’t share those numbers as a company policy, but we have them and I am looking at them right now.

You can also go in through Timberline Falls (A <L60 zone). The run to the story start does skirt by some L68 mobs (don’t try to take the shortcut through the troll cave!) but it’s quite doable at L66.

Hi Donan – It sounds like it may be something specific to your network unless those three different computers are in completely different locations/networks. I’m afraid that I cannot agree that this is 100% a server side issue because if this was the case this would be affecting most, if not all players.

Are you playing on a campus, by chance?

Hi there!

Switching to a 64-bit OS would probably be your best bet but I certainly can’t tell you to go out and do this. I think there’s a couple of other workarounds that have worked for other players with a 32-bit OS – unfortunately these are some suggestions that I cannot personally offer. I’d check out the other threads where players have reported the same issue to see if you stumble across it unless someone else chimes in to this thread to help you out.

Sorry I couldn’t offer any information other than this – generally turning down some of your in-game graphics options can alleviate some of the crashing but it sounds like this is something that you’ve already tried.

Pandemoniac.4739:

Vol.5241:

John Smith mentioned this awhile back, and he said that constructing an infographic like that takes a lot of time and translation (not sure why that is so tough though)

Taking a snapshot of complex economy data and translating it into a visualization that will enlighten rather than mislead is actually way more work than it sounds like. There is a lot of expertise and thought required even for things that seem simple like whether to use a bar chart or a pie graph.

And then there’s the part where John probably has other work responsibilities that take up his time. If he really loved us though, he stop wasting all that time sleeping and interacting with his friends and family and give us some brightly colored charts to pick apart

This.

brannigan.9831:

The shark has already been jumped.

Kitten that kittening shark! I’m gonna go all Illusionary Whaler on it!

I feel what you guys are saying. We’re putting together a puzzle, and that puzzle isn’t complete. Some of you see where we are so far and say our pieces are wrong. I say no one piece by itself is going to complete this puzzle.

Maybe I’m more optimistic because I can see more pieces than you guys (which is a shame), or maybe because I have a better idea what the completed puzzle is going to look like.

Either way, my personal mission is to make GW2 PvP the best it kitten can be, and no shark or troll is going to slow me down!

Tomorrow’s Guild Wars 2 developer livestream will be all about Edge of the MIsts. We’ll be giving an extensive sneak peek at the new map, so if you’ve got questions about it, post them here and our livestream devs will try to answer some of them during the event!

The livestream begins tomorrow, November 8th, at noon PST on http://www.twitch.tv/guildwars2 –we’ll see you then!

Julischka Bean.7491:

Hello all.
I am sick with a bad head cold and can’t seem to be be able to put words together because of it, but, after reading this thread, I feel I don’t have to as everyone has done a beautiful job.

Speaking for myself, I am enjoying the frequent content. On my wishlist is more missions that can be done solo. Waypointing into Kessex and finding myself in a mission was a very wonderful experience. I am a reader. I love lore. I like taking my time and seeing all there is to see.

One thing I do not want to see more of in future Living Stories, or any mission in GuildWars2 for that matter is locking important things (Like Voting) behind Jumping puzzles. I am a clutz. I have real problems getting to some Vistas. Locking shinies behind Jumping Puzzles is ok, but important things, like voting, is not.

Anyways, I look forward to seeing what this talented bunch of Devs have in store for us

Lisa-Stumbling back to bed clutching a hot water bottle.

Aww get well soon and thanks for the feedback. Really we need to make sure we don’t gate progress of Living World behind content like Jumping Puzzles unless the jumping puzzle is the core focus of the event.

Chris

Conncept.7638:

BobbyStein.2315:

It’s more a matter of finishing what we started, implementing what we’ve already designed, and setting the game up for the next arc…

Why couldn’t the design team have this attitude when they attempted and failed to expand on the event system? I swear it seems like they barely even tried…

Hi Conncept,

Can you provide some more details please in order to add more value to the discussion. Can you explain what you mean by attempted and failed to expand on the event system? Where do you think we failed and what do you see as success?

Chris

treemendous.6591:

Thank you so much for the quick reply! I have submitted a request for support and I hope that the problem can be resolved soon. Thank you again for being so helpful.

Any time. And again, thanks for your support!

Please contact Support to report inappropriate guild/player names. Thank you!

Hi Maiden England – What troubleshooting steps have you tried already? Have you tried repairing the client? The more information that you’re able to provide the more quickly we can assist you with this issue.

Hi trotro – Unfortunately this isn’t enough information for us to go off of as a number of different things could be causing this crash. I would first ensure that you meet the system requirements. If you do, I’d start with a driver update and a repair to start. Beyond this, I’d need to see a crash log from you in order to get some idea as to why you’re experiencing this problem.

Arie.6941:

Hello,
I would like to thank to gw2 support-team for open back my account (Arie.4203). Now i can play again.

Thanks GW2 support-team, thanks Gaile.
Sorry for my bad english.

I’m really happy we could help you, Arie! Welcome back to the game.

Hi there Jabbiz – Are you on a 64-bit or a 32-bit OS? If you’re using a 32-bit OS, more than likely this is the cause of your issue if you’ve got more than around 3.5 GB of memory (including the additional video memory) in your system. This is simply due to a limitation of 32-bit operating systems.
This is where it gets a little complicated, but the short version is that the additional memory can push your total available memory into negative numbers resulting in crashes or simply, “out of memory errors.” Some players have resolved this by upgrading to a 64-bit operating system. Others simply have removed physical RAM from the system to bring the memory totals closer to values intended for that revision of Windows (32-bit). Obviously removing RAM from your PC is not an ideal solution but I wanted to give you all the information we have learned regarding these issues. You can read more about this issue from Microsoft here: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/929605 The important part is listed below:

“For example, if you have a video card that has 256 MB of onboard memory, that memory must be mapped within the first 4 GB of address space. If 4 GB of system memory is already installed, part of that address space must be reserved by the graphics memory mapping. Graphics memory mapping overwrites a part of the system memory. These conditions reduce the total amount of system memory that is available to the operating system.”

One solution presented by players being affected by this is to change the “Maximum pre-rendered frames” in the Nvidia control panel. To do this:

1. Right-click on your desktop and select “Nvidia Control Panel.”
2. Select "Manage 3D Settings.”
3. Scroll down until you find “Maximum pre-rendered frames” and change it from “Use the 3D application settings” to “1.”

Once completed, click “Apply” to save your changes and try Guild Wars 2 again.

Hope this helps!

Hi there Palm Tiger (and anyone else experiencing this issue):

The instructions below will change the way Guild Wars 2 connects on your network. In short, this will force all inbound and outbound data to use port 80. Since port 80 is a very common port, it usually has the least amount of issues with transmission of data. To do this:

1. Locate the file “GW2.exe” and right-click it, selecting “Create Shortcut.”
2. Rename this shortcut to “Guild Wars 2 Port Test.”
3. Right-click on this shortcut and select “Properties.”

4. Edit the “Target” line to include /clientport 80 at the end. Note: Please make sure /clientport 80 is outside of the quotes.
• Correctly Formatted Example: “C:\Games\Guild Wars 2\GW2.exe” /clientport 80
• Incorrectly Formatted Example: “C:\Games\Guild Wars 2\GW2.exe /clientport 80”

5. Once completed, click “Ok” to save your changes.

If you get an error trying to save, your target line may not have the correct format. Please try Step 4 again.

6. Double click “Guild Wars 2 Port Test” and try connecting again.

Hope this helps!

Updating, because this is something we’re keenly sensitive about: I’d like to know the ticket number so we can review this. I believe there may well be something we can do about this to help you. I’m not sure yet, but I can’t help but think we definitely want to give this a look.

So may I have your ticket number?

Thanks.

If there is a tie, each server will be awarded the rewards for that place. e.g. if NSP and IoJ tie for 8th each will receive 8th place rewards.

Please take this discussion to the following thread, where Bill continues to discuss what we are doing about this problem.

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/Official-state-of-skill-lag-and-server-optimizations

zhi.3918:

Snip

I think there’s some confusion here – the PvP Team is an entirely separate entity from the Skills and Balance Team.

The PvP Team’s main focus is improving the infrastructure of PvP – meaning features, rewards, etc.

The teams do often consult each other on various ideas, but they have separate projects.

Sticking to the lines of transfers, what are reasonable restrictions to place on players after they transfer? No WvW for the rest of the match? No WvW for 24 hours? Would that help any or would it actually exacerbate the problem?

:P Sorry, Tiriyon… you won’t see me, you’ll see my Call of Karka.

There has been no change to the reset time. It occurs at the same time UTC as it has for the past several months. If your country/county/state/municipality/province/etc. has adjusted due to the end of daylight saving time, that is the reason for a different reset time.

Please respond to some of the more serious, well reasoned arguments concerning this change. There have been a dozen solid arguments as to why this is a bad idea, which take into consideration how S/D is forced to Spec and gear if it wants to remain effective, and also how thief was designed as part of the lowest Base HP pool in the game, with no way to block, go immune or psuedo-immune, no access to protection or stability.

When you make a statement like this, it is important to re-read the original post in general about how to give feedback. I appreciate the passion here, but literally this breaks every rule that I laid down.

How to give good feedback and what to expect.

• Be constructive. If you think a change may cause issues, say why and give examples. Try not to argue with others – make your point and then accept that other people may have different points of view.
• Be concise. Our time is limited and we can’t read walls of text because it will prevent us from having the time to read as many posts as possible. Bullet points or numbered lists are very easy for us to read!
• Be specific. “I expect this change to accomplish A, but I think it will actually accomplish B”. The more specific you are, the better we are able to understand where you’re coming from, what type of content you play, and it helps us to understand the context for your feedback.
• Be objective. Keep in mind that just because you may not like something, that doesn’t make it bad. Others may have differing opinions. They may play a different type of content, or they may play a different profession, so be objective and keep in mind – we have to balance the game for EVERYONE, not just you.
• Be respectful. This goes for your fellow community members as well as for devs. Respect the ideas and opinions of others.
• Be mindful of scope. These are the changes we are trying to get in for the Dec. 10th balance patch. That doesn’t leave us with time to rework entire classes, or redesign entire weapon sets with this update. Keep scope/work/time/resources in mind when you make your suggestions.
• Be mindful of context. Power creep is something we’re trying to avoid. Sometimes a profession may not receive as many increases as other classes. A lot of times, this is because that class is already performing very well in the current state of the game. So keep the overall context/state of the game in mind when giving feedback.

Jayce.5632:

Capture The Flag

Win Conditions:

• Capture 7/7 Enemy Flags (Includes 1 Hard Flag or flag located closest to spawn )
• Most Flags Captured When Timer Expires
• Most Flags Saved > Capture Draw
• Most Kills > Save Draw > Capture Draw

p.s. Map terrain and thoughtful flag placement makes all the difference. Can provide more details to the above if necessary.

So a few things on CTF:

We found that CTF works best as a “push” the flag, not “cap it by bringing it back to my base”. This means you have to push through the enemy team, and since you need to push it into their spawn, it means they can more easily defend a cap.

If it’s “cap” it by bringing it back to your base, there are often cases where the capturing team gets a flag past a certain point on the field, and no one on the defending team can catch up with them in order to prevent the cap.

We tried various mechanics, like making it so that the flag carrier couldn’t use skills, or they had to use “flag” skills, or they were just slowed down greatly, but in most of those instances, players didn’t have as much fun when carrying a flag. You can see some of this carried over to Spirit Watch and some of the issues it has.

Just some things to think about.

So, if prices for server transfers were based on WvW population, what would a fair distribution of costs look like from the lowest population servers to the highest? Keep in mind that making it completely impossible to transfer to a server puts a burden on other players. That doesn’t mean that you couldn’t have an incredibly high price, just that completely blocked isn’t an option.

@ 2on2/3on3: A lot of you guys really seem to like this idea. So do we. We’re looking at game types which encourage this style of play. Another thing we’re looking at it combining the size of fights with larger tactical/strategic implications, so that there is something fun going on the micro level (the actual fight) and the macro level (the map overall).

@ Moba: This plays into another idea you guys seem to be hitting on, which is a moba style game. We think the layout/flow of a moba style map could be really fun, especially when combined with something like killing enemy captains or guild lords. We’re also looking at testing something like that!

@ GvG/castle sieges: I think these can be combined in some pretty cool ways. You guys had some great points/ideas on these, so thanks for those.

@ Lords and protecting them/not protecting them: Players seem to be pretty split down the middle on this one. Some players want the “play” of protecting their Lord and keeping it alive, while other want it to be more like a MOBA nexxus – something you can’t actively heal/protect. We’ll have to try that one both ways to see what has better play to it. I suspect it’s the former.

@ Not having RPG elements in our game when compared to most MOBAS: Keep this in mind. It’s what gives the mobas their flow/pace. We need to build mechanics that change the pacing/feel of the map in a similar way, without hampering the fun players have. I think you get the same thing out of an RTS, but in a different way. Both sides start off with few resources and weak units. Over time they build up in both areas, and the middle/late game are very different than the early game.

I’ll keep looking for other things to respond to in this thread. Thanks for all the feedback/ideas guys.

Volrath.1473:

JonPeters.5630:

Maugetarr.6823:

JonPeters.5630:

Sondergaard.8469:

JonPeters.5630:

Infiltrator’s Return
The thing I have heard the second most discussion regarding. This is a big change to this skill, but we beleive it is a necessary one. In many cases this is not going to matter. There are only 2 situations where this is a truly impactful change.
1) It stops you from using this skill while stunned, which puts more burden on Sword/Dagger thieves saving their stun breakers. This is the kind of gameplay we want to encourage because it puts more risk in using a rewarding skill like Infiltrator’s Strike.
2) Mostly in PvP, this skill can no longer be used by S/D thieves to teleport stomp someone. This is actually the more impactful moment as it occurs more often, but I think it puts the burden on these players to run a second weapon set that can help them in these situations (OH pistol for instance.)

No, no, no, and no. The reason I absolutely am 100% against this change is the entire thief class is built around the idea that abilities are instant with no cast time with no cooldown (on weapon skills), because they are the only class with a resource pool for their abilities. Make it cost more initiative or give a debuff that slows down initiative gain. Reduce the damage, change the range, etc etc… I don’t care about that. What bothers me is the adding a cast time to a class who’s core mechanic is all about no cooldowns and being able to quickly maneuver around.

I’m not sure what you mean by instant, but this is currently the only instant weapon ability. We are not adding a HUGE cast time to this skill. This skill is going to have a 360 millisecond cast time. ~1/3 of a second.

Jon

With no access to stability (other than a 90 second elite) the ability to avoid the following hit if you had a good enough reaction time seemed like part of the design of the sword. It currently doesn’t break stuns anymore, just moves you (possibly) out of range. Would you be adversed to the idea of making the return in the 600-450 range instead of putting a cast time on it so that the immediate next (melee) hit can avoided while it does not completely remove pressure from you?

You can still avoid follow ups with this. 360 milliseconds is faster than almost any attack and certainly faster than almost all dangerous ones. The only loss here is using this while stunned and using it to teleport finish an opponent.

yep! so in sum you are basically removing the only usefulness of this ability and making it a gap closer, no one will hit that button again until it switches back to Infiltrator’s Strike.

Why not remove the shadow return all together? it would be just another Shadow Shot with a insignificant imob instead of the blind… It would be alot more usefull then the new (worse) shadow return.

It is currently for 3 initiative:

• gap closer
• 1s immob

for 2 more initiative:

• escape when not stunned
• remove 1 condition

With the new base regen that means you can gap close and immobilize and remove a condition every 5 seconds. Even if you spread that initiative over 4 skill slots that skill can be used every 20 seconds.

Jon

You have submitted a ticket to ask about this, and that’s good. There’s really no point in posting at this time; the team will answer you as quickly as possible.

The forums are designed for follow-ups (after three days in the specific thread) and for general questions of an account nature. But we specifically do not encourage a “submit-and-immediately-post” culture.

If you find you still need help after three days, feel free to post in the Tickets for Review thread, which is at the top of this Account Support sub-forum.

Hi Kersya,

For security purposes, and to ensure that things are handled in the best and quickest manner possible, you’ve done the correct thing in submitting a ticket to our support team. They will get back to you as soon as possible!

Imagi.4561:

BobbyT.7192:

The only thing black powder can’t provide is protection against carpet bombing down targets.
Keeping in mind we can still teleport stomp, with shadow step, but we are still giving up a utility/actual stun break to do.

From what I understand, using IS requires using a utility anyways, or burning your Steal.

Yeah you burn your steal (35-20s cooldown) with it, instead of burning shadowstep (50-40s cooldown.)

Jon

Intentional. We could probably add a max range but I don’t think it’s necessary at this time since it isn’t really breaking anything. The bug was what Godless described.

DarksunG.9537:

BobbyStein.2315:

If some folks “won’t listen or care about anything related to her” then they’ve already made up their minds. For the rest of the people playing the game, I would imagine that they’re curious as to where her story is going because we haven’t revealed as much as people have wanted. The truth of the matter is that we’ve been planning an epic conclusion to Scarlet’s story for a while now. I really wish I could say more but that would spoil what’s to come.

That seems a bit unfair. It’s like saying “the devs won’t listen & just drop her for something better because they’ve already decided she’s a good character”. I think many people won’t pay attention to her story because it’s been annoying so far. That’s not unfair. A story needs to earn the viewers attention & investment. I think most people will see what the story brings & accept it for good or bad. But I think that it’s extremely unfair to pre-lable people who are probably going to find her just as stupid as they do now. So far, every time you’ve explain more, it’s actually made her character more painful.

I feel like it’s a matter of quit-while-you’re-ahead. I’m surprised that the team quit adding DEs because there “wasn’t much fanfare” but when a character is so despised out of annoyance, lore-breaking ,meh visual design & wierdness, the team just sticks with her. I don’t get it.

I think I can sum up a lot of the fears of the future of Scarlet by saying: If you explain to me in harrowing detail why a character is annoying & groan-worthy, in the end they will still be annoying & groan-worthy. I’m not sure how that is a non-valid viewpoint.

It’s more a matter of finishing what we started, implementing what we’ve already designed, and setting the game up for the next arc. I think it’s best that we try and give this story a satisfying conclusion rather than abandon it because some people aren’t fans of the villain.

I want to make it clear, though, that I’m not ignoring the opinions of people who don’t like elements of this Living World story. Folks such as yourself have made it pretty clear why you don’t like it. You just have to understand that catering to every taste and dropping everything that’s currently in progress in favor of a new idea just isn’t practical. But we can take that feedback, discuss it along with the rest of the lessons we’ve learned over the past year, and take it into consideration as we plan future releases.

Please keep matchup discussion in the existing matchup thread.

Treborlavok.3504:

just like the guardians 5 trait for vigor on crit… its ok for them to have a 10 second single condition cure at adept…?

The Guardian and Mesmer vigor traits are something that were on the table and will be on the table for change in the future. We don’t like those traits being that easily accessible. While they haven’t yet been changed as long as our thoughts don’t change internally they are part of the vigor rework we want to do.

Rising Dusk.2408:

JonPeters.5630:

Even though we wont do it for Dec 10. I just wanted to throw out a wacky possible idea for Dhuumfire that we could discuss…

• Life Blast has a 100% chance to cause Burning on hit (2 seconds long). 6 seconds ICD.

Obviously the #s are ballpark and not necessarily final. The % chance, duration, and ICD are all subject to change.

Jon

A lot of these considerations, unfortunately, don’t make a lot of sense.

We should consider the following realities:

• A damaging condition in the Power line both hurts condition builds that want it and limits power builds that don’t want it
• Having it force power players to use LB to get the burn may have some validity in PvP, but drives this trait further into the mud for PvE where LB is inferior DPS to Dagger

Consider the following instead, Jon:

• Move Withering Precision from Curses to Spite Grandmaster
• Move Dhuumfire from Spite to Curses Grandmaster and DON’T change it
• Move Terror up to Grandmaster
• Drop Lingering Curses down to Master
• Move Weakening Shroud up to Master and DON’T change duration
• Move Spectral Attunement down to Adept

Withering Precision: Deal 15% more damage to foes suffering from Weakness.
Siphoned Power: Deal 10% more damage when you have over 90% HP or 90% Death Shroud.

This does the following things:

• Conditionmancers are forced to take either Terror or Dhuumfire, but they can’t have both
• Dhuumfire is a cover condition for other conditions and can have longer durations depending on condition duration investment, but fear doing damage is also very powerful. From this position, you could possibly even buff Dhuumfire to bring it into line with Terror since they occupy the same trait spot on a bar.
• Weakening Shroud is kept valuable with its new synergy with the new Withering Precision, which is now in the Power line
• Withering Precision goes to the Spite line and actually provides a dps boost comparable to Close to Death with different conditions, which actually helps PvE necros too
• New Siphoned Power has synergy with Death Shroud because you can activate it when health is over 90% and keep it there safely, and this trait significantly helps power Necros in both PvP and PvE to actually be worth packing over condition variants

Some great ideas in here. We’ve talked about moving Dhuumfire up to Grandmaster in the Curses line, and moving Terror as well.

We also like the idea of making Terror scale with # of conditions on your target, so there’s more “play” to trying to load your target up with a lot of condies before you hit them with Fear. Your opponent can try to keep condies low, so that Terror won’t hurt as much.

Dhuumfire moving would also open up a gap for a new GM trait in Spite, so we’d need to figure that out as well.

Great suggestions!

Rennoko.5731:

JonPeters.5630:

Rhyse.8179:

JonPeters.5630:

Great post, and yes we considered that, but its nice to get some good back and forth. The other drawback is that its PBAoE not ranged… Food for thought.

Wow that was fast. What timing. I’m impressed.

Since you’re here, I’ll leave a semi-relevant brain fart. Siphoning is lackluster and really hard to balance because of it’s simultaneous heal and damage. What about creating a Necro-unique condition that drains health into life force? It would fit into the sustain paradigm of the Blood tree, and create some DS/condition synergy as well. Obviously, not a suggestion for the coming patch, but it popped into my head about 3 minutes ago while reading the last couple pages of this thread and thought I’d throw it out and see if it catches.

We talked about a condition like that, but it blows out because we would want to balance it when you only had 1 target to apply it to, but if you epidemic it it now is hitting 6 targets and is wildly OP.

So just lock that skill out from working with epidemic? Like a stun or a daze.

How about 2 necros using this…

Sorry for not having to much time to post today. I have some free time over the next few days and will catch up. This said i haven’t really seen any pressing questions for me and am currently enjoying reading the discussion you are having among yourselves and with Colin and Bobby.

Chris

Rhyse.8179:

JonPeters.5630:

Great post, and yes we considered that, but its nice to get some good back and forth. The other drawback is that its PBAoE not ranged… Food for thought.

Wow that was fast. What timing. I’m impressed.

Since you’re here, I’ll leave a semi-relevant brain fart. Siphoning is lackluster and really hard to balance because of it’s simultaneous heal and damage. What about creating a Necro-unique condition that drains health into life force? It would fit into the sustain paradigm of the Blood tree, and create some DS/condition synergy as well. Obviously, not a suggestion for the coming patch, but it popped into my head about 3 minutes ago while reading the last couple pages of this thread and thought I’d throw it out and see if it catches.

We talked about a condition like that, but it blows out because we would want to balance it when you only had 1 target to apply it to, but if you epidemic it it now is hitting 6 targets and is wildly OP.

Rhyse.8179:

JonPeters.5630:

We are going back and forth between 2s and 3s of weakness. 3s with full condi duration and with Near to Death trait is almost 65% uptime, which sortof scared us on an adept trait that gives AoE weakness. 2s works out to 42% uptime when maxed out which felt a little better. Still open to discussion so thanks,

Jon

Don’t forget the context of that uptime. To get it, we have to use DS on cooldown, which restricts our defense by a massive amount. Trading our ability to absorb bursts in exchange for weakness uptime that benefits the whole group actually sounds fairly fair. Since it’s only an adept level trait though, 2s would still be apropriate imo. It still lets us use DS to mitigate spikes, which is what it’s needed for. In reality, very few people will use the skill for it’s uptime. They’re going to hold their DS cooldown until it’s needed.

Similar complain about staff. The argument that MOB is one of the best abilities in the game relies on the assumption of a situation that almost never happens. To get the numbers you mentioned, you need to hit 5 enemys and 5 allies simulatneously, and the conditions need to stay for their full duration and not get pushed off. Having all of these things at the same time is so unlikely that it can be discounted completely. In actual use, MOB is a mediocre ability made strong only by it’s short cooldown and the lack of any other DPS options on that weapon. If you really want to go through with nerfing this, take a look at adjusting the autoattack damage or upping the damage of the other marks to compensate.

Great post, and yes we considered that, but its nice to get some good back and forth. The other drawback is that its PBAoE not ranged… Food for thought.

Maugetarr.6823:

JonPeters.5630:

Sondergaard.8469:

JonPeters.5630:

Infiltrator’s Return
The thing I have heard the second most discussion regarding. This is a big change to this skill, but we beleive it is a necessary one. In many cases this is not going to matter. There are only 2 situations where this is a truly impactful change.
1) It stops you from using this skill while stunned, which puts more burden on Sword/Dagger thieves saving their stun breakers. This is the kind of gameplay we want to encourage because it puts more risk in using a rewarding skill like Infiltrator’s Strike.
2) Mostly in PvP, this skill can no longer be used by S/D thieves to teleport stomp someone. This is actually the more impactful moment as it occurs more often, but I think it puts the burden on these players to run a second weapon set that can help them in these situations (OH pistol for instance.)

No, no, no, and no. The reason I absolutely am 100% against this change is the entire thief class is built around the idea that abilities are instant with no cast time with no cooldown (on weapon skills), because they are the only class with a resource pool for their abilities. Make it cost more initiative or give a debuff that slows down initiative gain. Reduce the damage, change the range, etc etc… I don’t care about that. What bothers me is the adding a cast time to a class who’s core mechanic is all about no cooldowns and being able to quickly maneuver around.

I’m not sure what you mean by instant, but this is currently the only instant weapon ability. We are not adding a HUGE cast time to this skill. This skill is going to have a 360 millisecond cast time. ~1/3 of a second.

Jon

With no access to stability (other than a 90 second elite) the ability to avoid the following hit if you had a good enough reaction time seemed like part of the design of the sword. It currently doesn’t break stuns anymore, just moves you (possibly) out of range. Would you be adversed to the idea of making the return in the 600-450 range instead of putting a cast time on it so that the immediate next (melee) hit can avoided while it does not completely remove pressure from you?

You can still avoid follow ups with this. 360 milliseconds is faster than almost any attack and certainly faster than almost all dangerous ones. The only loss here is using this while stunned and using it to teleport finish an opponent.

Even though we wont do it for Dec 10. I just wanted to throw out a wacky possible idea for Dhuumfire that we could discuss…

• Life Blast has a 100% chance to cause Burning on hit (2 seconds long). 6 seconds ICD.

Obviously the #s are ballpark and not necessarily final. The % chance, duration, and ICD are all subject to change.

Jon

Arkantos.7460:

JonPeters.5630:

Cyhann.2609:

JonPeters.5630:

UPDATE

No longer swapping Flanking Strikes and Trickster because we felt it was taking away more build diversity than it was creating. We will revisit what to do with Trickster in the future.

Nooo, I was so happy to have Trickster at Adept ;_;. Why not changing it with Merciful Ambush or Instictual Response while buffing these traits? They are quite weak after all.

Yeah those are the kinds of ideas, but we don’t want to move flanking and don’t have time to buff something else right now. I will save these suggestions for when we do get to this.

Jon

posted my earlier comment while you make your note official-
It was a great idea maybe you have Long Reach/Uncatchable/merciful Ambush/Instinctual Response für switching,
oh plz it would be so more useful in Adept
‘hope’

It will get there, just hang on because we want to get it right so after Dec 10…

jsduke.6537:

JonPeters.5630:

The point is this thing is unbounded. You can be hit a bunch of times and it keeps stacking up the might. Maybe the duration is a bit low, but with no cooldown this is a good interesting trait.

You can be hit a bunch of times… while <25% HP.

I can’t speak for other Necros, but if I get hit “a bunch of times” while <25%, it doesn’t matter how many stacks of Might I get because I just died.

Like I said, it works while in DS.

alanis.6094:

JonPeters.5630:

Bhawb.7408:

I feel like the weakness is just a little bit too small. I feel like 3s base would be perfect. In PvP overall condition duration sits at 50% at max for weakness, which would give it a 45% uptime, assuming you used it on CD. But more realistically, it’d be used less often as the normal bleed burst rotation.

Otherwise, I think its a decent option, my only fear is that, like other on-entry skills, it ends up too weak because it “can” be spammed every 7s in one build.

We are going back and forth between 2s and 3s of weakness. 3s with full condi duration and with Near to Death trait is almost 65% uptime, which sortof scared us on an adept trait that gives AoE weakness. 2s works out to 42% uptime when maxed out which felt a little better. Still open to discussion so thanks,

Jon

But that build would have to be:

30/10/0/0/20 (+10) … in WvW … with duration food … and double duration weapons … and duration crystals …

I think you meant 30/20/0/0/20 which is generally accepted as one of the best condition builds, which is what you run this with, and also not including food, but only including condition duration runes. With food it actually goes to.

54% uptime @ 2s
82% uptime @ 3s

Jon

Leuca.5732:

Tyler Chapman.1832:

Not going to dive too far into answering this but the designers moved these traits to the master line because they consider them traits too strong to be adept. Surely you can imagine a bunch of ideas were on the table.

Why are they too strong to be adept? A condition cleanse every 10 seconds (requires maxed Arcana) and some boons on attunement. Stating the obvious here, but wouldn’t a better solution have included identifying factors that make them so strong and then toning those down? For instance, how numerically strong would Cleansing Wave still be if it only affected the Elementalist? I can only guess ideas like this were brought up, but who actually thinks Cleansing Wave would be too strong for the Adept tier if it had no aoe, and what ele wouldn’t still find it useful for the most part?

My issue with many of these changes is that they are unnecessarily counteracting changes that are meant to increase versatility.

It’s the only tier 1 AOE cleanse in the game is the main reason, other factors are that its also an on demand cleanse, and it can be used every 10 seconds.

^^ directly from JP’s mouth just now

Sondergaard.8469:

JonPeters.5630:

Infiltrator’s Return
The thing I have heard the second most discussion regarding. This is a big change to this skill, but we beleive it is a necessary one. In many cases this is not going to matter. There are only 2 situations where this is a truly impactful change.
1) It stops you from using this skill while stunned, which puts more burden on Sword/Dagger thieves saving their stun breakers. This is the kind of gameplay we want to encourage because it puts more risk in using a rewarding skill like Infiltrator’s Strike.
2) Mostly in PvP, this skill can no longer be used by S/D thieves to teleport stomp someone. This is actually the more impactful moment as it occurs more often, but I think it puts the burden on these players to run a second weapon set that can help them in these situations (OH pistol for instance.)

No, no, no, and no. The reason I absolutely am 100% against this change is the entire thief class is built around the idea that abilities are instant with no cast time with no cooldown (on weapon skills), because they are the only class with a resource pool for their abilities. Make it cost more initiative or give a debuff that slows down initiative gain. Reduce the damage, change the range, etc etc… I don’t care about that. What bothers me is the adding a cast time to a class who’s core mechanic is all about no cooldowns and being able to quickly maneuver around.

I’m not sure what you mean by instant, but this is currently the only instant weapon ability. We are not adding a HUGE cast time to this skill. This skill is going to have a 360 millisecond cast time. ~1/3 of a second.

Jon