Guild Wars 2

Gear

• Magic Find gear should probably be avoided; many teammates will be annoyed if they see a Luck sigil beside your portrait

Weapons

• unless you’re a complete super pro, your “dungeon kit” should include a ranged weapon (it doesn’t need to be available on swap, but it should be ready-to-go in your inventory)
• if you’re a Guardian, you must have at least one melee weapon set. If your teammates are in melee combat but you’re fighting at range, then you’re probably doing something wrong.

Cleave

• it’s important to know which weapons cleave and which do not
• many enemy attacks also cleave – “stack here” can be a dangerous proposition

Projectile Reflection

• how it works (reflected projectiles immediately become “friendly” and will collide with the first available enemy – not necessarily the original source of the projectile)
• positioning (usually “closer to the enemy is better” – you see some new Guardians put up a Wall of Reflection halfway between the enemy and the team’s backline, which means that melee fighters won’t benefit from its protection)

Invulnerability frames.

• what they are
• which skills provide them
• how to use them in conjunction with dodges (to minimize damage taken)

Called Targets

• if you have a ranged weapon, always shoot at the called target
• if you’re melee, approach the called target and attack ONLY IF it’s safe to do so (e.g. target is Blind, target is covered by Projectile Reflection field, target is not standing inside a lethal AoE field)
• in general, you should use CC effects to move secondary enemies towards the called target, so that the team’s Cleave and AoE attacks will do more damage
• moving the called target is generally a bad idea (melee fighters will get upset if their big attacks suddenly miss); scattering enemies is usually a bad idea. Do so only when you need to interrupt an attack and have no other alternative

Food

• not mandatory for casual runs
• consider using it if the team wipes or fails a difficult combat encounter – the extra edge may be useful
• some items (tuning crystals, maintenance oils, Skale Venom, etc) can serve as a generic boost; you don’t need to carry the entire spectrum of Slayer potions

Minions and Summons

• sometimes undesirable (e.g. due to random targeting = Maw, or all-target attacks = Alpha, etc)
• try to dismiss/stow/shatter before running through an unfamiliar “skipping” or “puzzle” section for the first time
• minion-heavy builds may be undesirable in some dungeon paths due to unpredictable aggro effects. Consider respeccing if you want to run these paths regularly

Tribune Burntclaw

• not especially difficult, but it allows for some fun challenges (“I’m going to spend the entire fight in melee range without getting hit by a single Banish attack”).
• I like the tuning in this encounter – the boss’s melee attacks are powerful but not one-hit-kill. If someone gets Downed or Immobilized then there’s a serious risk that they’ll be launched into lava, but the team can manage this risk with appropriate counter-play (e.g. Shadow Refuge on the downed person, Immobilize the boss to prevent him from reaching the target, use an AoE stability skill to counter the Launch effect, or just blind him at the last instant).
• the boss skillset makes sense. He can perform heavy cleaving melee attacks, but he’s vulnerable to flanking/backstabs. Therefore, he has a quick-activation skill which knocks back attackers in melee range and disrupts their attack patterns. He’s vulnerable to long-range attackers and evasive melee fighters, but if they’re not paying close attention then he can pin them down with Bolas and Banish them into lava. He’s a big slow-moving target who tends to soak up a lot of Conditions, and so he has a way to cleanse Conditions (arguably, his condition-cleansing ability is excessive but w/e).

Kill-BOT900

• good “punishment” mechanic. If you screw up, then you don’t simply get killed and respawn at the nearest waypoint – you get sent down to dodge a pack of bloodthirsty sharks until you can rejoin the fight (and his HP doesn’t reset in the meantime).
• uses powerful CC effects, but they can be mitigated with careful positioning of your character (rather than relying on split-second timing of dodges or Stability skills)
• learning and predicting his attacks is crucial to survival. Fortunately, the boss is big enough that the attack cues are never hidden by particle effects.

I agree that it would be nice to have a “Right Click > Lock/Unlock” feature.

For now, you can put your precious items (such as alternate weapons) in an Invisible Bag so that they won’t be accidentally sold.

I’m opposed to this idea – it would be far too vulnerable to misuse and workarounds (for instance – you can disable /team chat but you can’t block TeamSpeak).

Specific points:

• You’d need to disable all skills, not just weapons. It would be unfair for a “neutral” Mesmer to setup a portal into the enemy keep. A “neutral” Thief could follow around a team of players and grief them by dropping traps everywhere.
• You’d need to disable revival as well. Otherwise, whenever a team loses a fort, they’d simply leave a dead Mesmer inside. “Neutral” ally walks in, revives the Mesmer, and then you’ve got twenty attackers behind your wall.
• The toll is a clever idea, but it might lead to undesired outcomes: Your server captures Stonemist. Hooray! Waitaminute – it’s just been claimed by some Guild that nobody’s ever heard of. Oh, apparently it’s a one-man Guild. This claiming Guild can’t actually provide any buffs or pay for upgrades or contribute to the castle’s defense; the Guild leader has simply claimed it so that he can collect some tolls before it gets recaptured.
• Disabling the neutral status at-will is a bad idea. A “neutral” Thief could follow someone around for several minutes, wait until they’re engaged (or seem to be AFK), and then gank them. Anyone could do this, of course – Thief is just the most obvious example. And it wouldn’t be limited to players – you could easily infiltrate behind enemy lines to kill Dolyaks.

And yes – this idea has been suggested before.

randomfightfan.4091:

obal.3218:

It seems like many used the theives guild skill and learned by example.

?

The NPCs summoned by Thieves Guild aren’t clever – they spam attack skills, don’t position themselves well, never dodge to avoid damage, and often die within ten seconds.

obal is saying that an unskilled Thief player is simply mimicking his NPC allies: “This is awesome look at how much damage I’m doing! Thief is the best profession ev… oops. Could someone revive me?”

1) Yes, all of your characters will inhabit the same world. Your characters can temporarily “visit” other servers at any time via the Guesting system.

2) Tarnished Coast specializes in role-playing. I don’t know of any other server-specific quirks, but some other posters may have more information.

3) A high-population server will tend, ceteris paribus, to have more “successful” PvE outcomes. There are major events within the game (such as dungeon unlocks, or Orrian temple liberation missions) which require a lot of player participation to succeed. If you’re on a low-pop server, you might need to personally organize such activities if you want to see them succeed; on a high-pop server you can just tag along (or perhaps you log in and find that someone else has already done them for you).

The other thing is World vs World combat. On a high-population server you’ll have more opportunity to participate in huge fight, but there are population caps on each of the WvW maps. If you play during primetime then you may find yourself unable to join WvW when you want to (you’ll get placed in a queue and forced to wait for a few minutes).

On a low-population server you’ll probably be able to WvW whenever you want, but the experience will be different (e.g. 30-person fights instead of 50-person fights).

Meh; that sounds like too much work. You’d need to adjust a bunch of stuff in the WvW borderlands map in order to accomodate the extra gates, and it would probably be annoying to even find the desired gate because they’d get scattered around to odd locations in the city maps (like the Fields of Ruin gate in Divinity’s Reach).

You’d get the same result, for very little developer effort, and with better convenience for players, simply by providing free travel to city waypoints.

Shiyo.3578:

Why play a game if you only play for the reward, and not the journey?

The journey is important to me. During gameplay, I want to feel useful and empowered (this is basically the main reason that people play video games, aside from a few horror or puzzle games wherein disempowerment is used to build tension).

My character is a Mesmer specialized for crowd control and projectile reflection. I can bring several enemies together and immobilize them. Alone, I can’t do much (Mind Wrack and Blurred Frenzy – then withdraw before I get killed), but it does give my teammates an opportunity. When I see them seize that opportunity, it makes me feel useful. Examples:

• Warriors and Guardians can charge in and execute a cleaving melee attack
• Thieves can perform a mass-Blind and execute an attack combo against a high-value target
• Necromancers and Elementalists can drop a pulsing or channeled AoE on the group, getting in quite a few hits before the targets will be able to disperse
• an Engineer’s course of action will depend on their equipped weaponry and cooldowns, but they can usually do something with the opportunity (grenade barrage, big ol’ bomb, flame blast, glue shot, supply drop, blunderbuss, etc)
• a Ranger’s options are fairly limited. Barrage is ideal, but it may not be available due to its long cooldown. Traps are a good option if traited and equipped. Path of Scars is decent, but many Ranger players show up for dungeon runs with a pair of bows and wouldn’t consider using anything else.

Too often, the experience of fighting alongside a Ranger simply becomes disappointing. I’m not talking about DPS or speedrun times; I’m talking about little details which make me think “nice move!” or “great combo!” or “wow, that guy is putting a lot of effort into supporting the team.” When I team up with Rangers, such moments are much more rare.

What’s stopping you from transmuting your Legendary weapon to the desired stats? I did so with mine; it retained the Legendary descriptor and colour. If/when Ascended gear is released, I expect it to be automagically upgraded. If that doesn’t happen, I’ll just file a support ticket.

This whole suggstion seems like a “solution for a problem that doesn’t exist.”

Skady.5916:

I think the problem with ranger specifically is that class has a very steep learning curve

I don’t think that this is the whole story. As with any class, there’s a steep curve at the right-hand side of the experience-vs-effectiveness chart. The problem lies in the middle, where there’s a huge “learning plateau”. The technique that you mention (equip a bow and three Signets, send in the bear, attack from max range, knockback anything that gets too close) is effective for so much of a player’s PvE career that they don’t bother learning any other tricks. To speak a bit fancifully, it’s a First-Order Optimal Strategy which becomes a psychological trap.

When a player brings this tactic to a dungeon, it will often seem “good enough” (e.g. because a Guardian is providing heavy support to the team) and so the player keeps using it. If the team fails, the Ranger player can simply assume that that the content is over-tuned, or that their teammates are incompetent (“I was the last man standing, so obviously you melee guys don’t know what you’re doing”). There’s not much room for minor improvements (“I guess that I could replace one of my signets with a spirit, but they suck and always get killed. Screw it, let’s just try it again with the same tactics and see what happens”) and so the player isn’t likely to adapt even after suffering a major setback.

That, I think, is the main reason why people are reluctant to include Rangers in their dungeon teams. Other professions are forced to notice their flaws (such as a facetanking Warrior getting downed by a single trash mob for the fifth time, or a phantasm Mesmer seeing his fragile damage-dealers get destroyed by splash damage before completing a single attack) and adapt, but there’s no guarantee that a Ranger player – even a veteran Ranger player – will have learned how to be a useful member of a dungeon team.

My most interesting experience with a Ranger teammate came when I was leading a newbie group through CoF Path 3. One of the team’s Rangers was using Greatsword as his primary weapon, with Longbow on swap. On the one hand, I was happy to see someone experimenting rather than using a cookie-cutter build. There was some definite potential for team-play there: he could act as a “tackler,” grabbing aggro, evading attacks, dropping traps and Muddy Terrain to leave foes vulnerable to melee cleaves and channeled AoE attacks. Unfortunately, his skill level wasn’t up-to-par yet; he kept getting himself killed by charging into groups that were too tough for him (and he couldn’t figure out the appropriate moment to use “Protect Me”). Eventually, I had to ask him to just to do the bow-attacks-at-max-range thing so that we could win the wave fight and finish the dungeon.

Toast.6459:

Are you so pathetically lazy that you can’t even play a game anymore?

What about a compromise solution that allows people to transfer experience between characters? Would that overcome the “lazy” concern?

[5 Mystic Forge Stones] + [5 Crystals] = [Jug of Liquid Experience]

Assume that consuming the Jug grants the usual dungeon completion reward (70% experience). Drinking your way from 2-80 would be prohibitively expensive (approx 330 skill points, plus 85 gold or equivalent real-world money). The only advantage that it would have over crafting is that it would involve fewer clicks (especially if they included a 10x recipe, as is the case with Mystic Clovers).

Cymric.7368:

I am surprised that so many people recommend melee. Is melee recommended because of the cleave or the dps? … I am also surprised at the greatsword hate

You’re playing a Mesmer. Your damage output is mid-tier at best. The one thing that you excel at is disrupting the enemy – repositioning them, reflecting their projectiles, luring them, absorbing attacks with clones and invulerability, crippling and immobilizing dangerous targets, stripping away boons and Defiant stacks, and interrupting major attacks.

Greatsword is on-par with Sword/Focus when it comes to crippling enemies (because Phantasmal Berserker recharges slightly faster than Temporal Curtain, and the cripple effect on Illusionary Leap is unreliable). For all of the other stuff that I’ve listed above, and for damage output, Sword/Focus is superior.

The major advantage of the Greatsword is simply “survival” due to its long range; it’s a good weapon to use while you’re learning GW2 (and its various dungeons). But once you recognize most of the important enemy skills (e.g. their cues/animations, the approximate danger zone of each one, whether it’s interruptible/reflectible, etc) then you’ll contribute more to your team by wielding a Sword and remaining in melee range whenever possible.

jpnova.4572:

I’m afraid I have to respond in the negative, open world pvp between guilds would make map chat spammy, cause crowding in maps and cause group farming of low level guild members in starter maps. If such a system is ever implemented it should be instanced where each guild agrees on a certain number of members, bring the said number or less and get to enjoy an all out war scenario, winning guild gets lots of influence and merits and each member gets a set number of commendations as a result.

Agreed. GW2 is fundamentally a theme-park game rather than a sandbox; developers should focus on its strengths. Setup a structured system for friendly matches, challenges, callouts, and full-scale battles (with player limits on each side, for the sake of fairness). Track statistics. Provide bonuses to the victorious guild and to successful players (regardless of which side they were on); with minor loot awarded to everyone simply for participating. If the feature proves to be popular, expand it to include a mix of “brawl”, “raid”, and “siege” combat scenarios (possibly involving Guild halls as siege targets).

The alternative proposal (put it in the open-world and hope that emergent gameplay produces worthwhile results) is risky. Sure, it might produce rivalries and it might encourage guildmates to group up (as a matter of course) for mutual defense. But it might also produce a lot of unfun lopsided fights (e.g. six exotic-geared dudes ganking a single low-leveled opponent while he’s trying to mine copper for his first sword) leading to unfun countermeasures (e.g. guilds automatically refusing ALL war declarations; players refusing to represent an at-war guild; players simply logging out and switching to an Alt at the first sign of enemy activity) rather than organized defensive behaviour. Developers would then be forced to implement various tweaks (e.g. a long cooldown on the “represent a guild” button) in order to try to workaround the underlying “social problem.”

BobDoleSmash.8910:

-Open World PvP Between warred guilds

You might want to look into the history of the wardec feature in EVE Online. It’s been in-place for almost ten years. CCP has reworked it a few times over the years (e.g. by forcing the aggressor to pay a fee; they’ve also seen proposals which would require consent for wardecs), but it fundamentally doesn’t work as a “feature which creates fun gameplay and interesting social interactions.” At best, it’s a somewhat-useful tool for griefing and blackmailing players who don’t understand the game mechanics; at worst, it’s just a timesink for everyone involved.

TheAngryLuddite.1834:

ikittenone = in_a_zone (without the underscores, obviously)

Weirdest ‘kitten’ censor I’ve seen so far.

The GW2 forum software is very sensitive to any mention of a certain political party which active in Germany for a few decades of the twentieth century.

I think we can all agree that those guys were a bunch of kittens.

Sundar.1735:

What’s the point in doing so many runs quickly anyway? Wouldn’t DR kick in after a few runs?

Yes, it will. However, DR influences only the end-of-dungeon completion rewards. The intermediate rewards (boss kill-drops, and the standard treasure chests) are quite generous in CoF P1, and they are not reduced by DR.

A purpose-built group is only slightly faster than a “random” group of skilled players (I’d estimate 30-50 seconds faster, depending on composition). However, if you’ve decided to spend several hours grinding/farming a specific dungeon path, then it’s natural to seek out the maximum possible rewards for your time investment (since you’ve accepted that the gameplay “enjoyment” factor is going to be pretty minimal).

I’d like to see a “One-man band” kit for Engineers. Imagine it as a backwards version of a Warhorn or Shout skill – most of its skills are player-centered AOEs which apply conditions to enemies rather than boons to allies. The standard five-target limit would apply.

1. - [Cowbell] / [More Cowbell] / [Even More Cowbell]. Medium-range (900?) non-projectile attack. Inflicts damage and Weakness on a single target. Perhaps [More Cowbell] could inflict Chilled instead of Weakness.
2. - [Cymbal Crash]. Melee-range PBAOE damage and daze (intended to give the Engineer an opportunity to retreat when surrounded). Also acts as a Blast finisher (to provide some flexbility/utility for a player who stays out of melee range).
3. - [Drum of Dissonance]. 1200-range AOE confusion.
4. - [Halting March]. 1200-range AOE cripple.
5. - [Furious Oompah]. Channeled skill. Lasts up to six seconds (unless canceled or interrupted). Each second, it produces a pulse which causes 1200-range AOE damage and burning (2 seconds). The final pulse also acts as a Whirl finisher.

Zenith.7301:

Mesmers are brought for Feedback and Time Warp. Period. If they had neither, nobody would bring them, because their sustained DPS is actually pretty bad.

For boss fights? Yeah, my DPS is unimpressive and my main contribution is to use Time Warp and Feedback correctly.

Against groups of enemy infantry, a Mesmer can be a great force-multiplier. [Into the Void] can pull five mobs together against a convenient wall or pillar. [Illusionary Leap] > [Swap] will immobilize them for two seconds. Close in and use [Blurred Frenzy] and maybe a Shatter skill or two. Between proximity and damage output, you should be able to get some aggro and hold most of the enemies in-place (using interrupts, dodges, and Distortion to stay alive). Your teammates now have a convenient cluster of enemies towards which they can aim piercing/bouncing projectiles, AoE attacks, and cleaving melee strikes.

Note: Guardians can perform similar combos, but their Pull ability has a slightly longer activation time and cooldown, and their AoE immobilize requires greater skill/effort in order to be effective.

I’ve done it a few times as a Mesmer using Sword+Focus | Sword+Sword. There’s no difficulty in staying alive – you have at least three interrupts to use against the Hellstorm: Distortion, Counter Blade, Into the Void. Take Blade Training so that you can use your Blurred Frenzy attack as often as possible.

I doubt that there’s going to be much interest in theorycrafting an optimal Mesmer controller-kill, though. Any CoF farming group is going to have a Warrior or Thief on the gate, and a Mesmer has to rely almost entirely on weapon skills. Portal is definitely on cooldown, Blink is probably on cooldown, and you can’t afford to use any long-cooldown skills because you need to reserve two utility slots (and your Elite, of course) for the upcoming Effigy fight.

Folk.2093:

Or you can just do what I did when I was new and just follow along.

That doesn’t always work:

/recruits a team for CoF P3 using GW2LFG
“Hi everyone.”
/votes for path 3
“I’ll solo the north torch.”
/runs to north torch
/watches entire team “just follow along” to the north torch
/leads team back to the entrance
“Okay, this first section is a puzzle involving timing and coordination. We’ll need to split up and….”

Iehova.9518:

Tribune whatshisname needs a 50% HP reduction and safety nets in his lava.

That’s crazy. His attacks don’t do enough damage to actually threaten anyone; “launch you into lava and make you burn to death” is the one thing that makes him dangerous.

I don’t agree on the 50% HP reduction – I’d prefer to change the fight in a way which evens out the time-to-completion among different teams. Specifically, change his stomp attack so that it confers Protection, Retaliation, and Fury (the latter two persisting for 5 seconds after the stomp) instead of Invulnerability. Eliminate his invulnerability-related condition cleansing effect. Results:

• skilled berserker teams will be able to kill the boss slightly faster (since they can maintain continuous damage) at a higher risk/reward level. Less confident teams can stop attacking the boss during the stomp (status quo), using it as an opportunity to heal and reposition themselves.
• players will be able to contribute to the fight by using their boon-stealing, boon-removal, and boon-conversion abilities.
• it will no longer possible to dodge everything; players may suffer enough “chipping” damage from Retaliation that they get can be Downed by the Tribune’s Banish attack (which puts actual pressure on the team – can you Immobilize the boss long enough for a safe revival? can someone apply Stealth to the downed person?)
• teams which can coordinate CC skills will be able to strip Defiant stacks and interrupt the Stomp ability. They can prevent the boss from gaining his boons and thereby speed up the fight (at the cost of some danger – the pace of the fight will change and it may involve more combat at the edges of the platform rather than the center). This could get players to plan and communicate more, e.g. “let him Stomp – I can put a Well of Corruption under his feet”
• condition builds can mostly ignore the Retaliation and Protection effects; they can continue to deal steady damage to the boss throughout the fight (without being stymied by intermittent cleansing)
• support skills and boons (e.g. Stability, Protection) remain very useful
• movement-impairment effects (e.g. Chill, Cripple, Immobilize) remain very useful

Pip.2094:

I too am pro-mounts and wish to have some in game! Don’t scream at me, I just find them to give that more “Fantasy” feeling to the game…way more than waypoints and all the Asuran technologies, to be honest…

Waitaminute – the ability to ride a horse (something that you, personally, can do in reality) would be MORE fantastic than steampunk teleportation, dragons, shapeshifting, magical fireballs, hammers made of mercury, hordes of undead, a city built by gods, and sapient polar bears.

Really?

http://gw2lfg.com/

Use this site instead.

Chelsea Vendetta.1897:

I get nothing for 1/2 a tier so why bother show tiers?

You get achievement points whenever you complete a tier. Players may not have enough time to finish off a category completely, but the tier system allows them to receive “partial credit” for reaching milestones.

From a psychological perspective, frequent minor rewards are more compelling than the distant prospect of a single major reward. If you want someone to keep playing your game, which of the following messages would you send?

• “You’re only 5 points away from Drake Slayer (Tier 1)!”
• “You’re only 9005 points away from Drake Slayer!”

No, thank you. I have a Legendary weapon. I crafted it for aesthetic reasons. I don’t want a “click here to win” button. I don’t want to see five-man teams of Legendary wielders able to wipe out an entire zerg force in WvW simply by synchronizing their Legendary attacks. I don’t want a player to ever think “I can usually beat a Warrior 1-on-1, but that guy has a Legendary and his super attack might not be on cooldown, so I’d better run away instead.” I don’t want to see the community descend into arguments about vertical progression.

DR is valid as a mechanic which encourages “diversity of gameplay.” You can see this even in CoF farming, where some groups will advertise two or three runs of Path 1, then a run of Path 2 (to reset the Path 1 DR), and then repeat.

It would be very difficult to create a game in which all activities are perfectly balanced in terms of rewards-per-hour. In the worst case, players will discover the single activity which is most rewarding and then farm/grind it endlessly. While doing so, they won’t actually have much fun or build a healthy game community.

In a perfect world, DR would automatically compensate for this problem. The “most rewarding” activity will still exist, but after running it for a half-hour it will become sub-optimal. Truly dedicated/addicted farmers will setup a sequence of activities (e.g. Penitent-Shelter) which incorporates a bit of diversity; more casual players will probably farm until they hit DR and then do something more interesting (e.g. megaboss events, guild missions, WvW, daily achievements, Super Adventure Box, etc). In this way, DR can promote more balanced gameplay.

Also – grinding for legendaries (and/or vanity items) isn’t the only thing to do at level 80.

Mantorok.3647:

why not add the option to toggle the opposite gender’s armor model? As in a female character wearing a male character’s armor and vice versa.

Thoughts?

It’s a good idea, since it gives more choice/freedom to players.

In terms of implementation, though – it’s a non-starter. This isn’t a matter of clicking a checkbox on the backend which says “allow cross-gender armor yes/no”. Instead, each individual armor model would need to be adjusted to actually fit onto the other gender’s skeleton (you’d also need to adjust the rigging so that it animates properly – due to wider shoulders, proportionally longer thighs, etc). And you’d need to deal with the problem of protuberances – it’s difficult to avoid distortions of UVW maps when an underlying surface changes from flat to bumpy (or vice-versa). In many cases, supplemental texture work would be needed.

It would require hundreds (quite possibly thousands) of hours of preparatory work by artists in order to make this feature possible. Imagine that you’re a manager/producer at ArenaNet. Which of the following would you do?

• Greenlight this proposal in order to satisfy a (relatively) small number of players on the forum.
• Invest that time/effort into creating fresh new content which might expand your playerbase (e.g. reward items for new dungeons, new gem store vanity items, new endgame armor skins to act as a long-term goal for players).

jul.7602:

Your video in unrealistic and ommits key sections of the run.

No, it doesn’t. It omits the “filler” portions of the run and focuses on those sections in which completion time can be most strongly influenced by team composition and player skill.

I mean – the omitted sections could show the team repeatedly standing around waiting for cooldowns (e.g. for Battle Standard and Portal) but there’s no reason to suspect that they did so. They killed the Acolytes without relying on banner buffs (so no need to wait for those cooldowns) and the Effigy’s lifespan was so short that it used its Shockwave attack only once (hence, no need for the Mesmer to juggle utility slots in order to prepare Feedback).

For poison and burning, maybe. But intensity-stacking doesn’t make sense for most conditions:

• Intense fear. Target runs away faster?
• Intense immobilize. Target can’t even think about moving?
• Intense blind. Instead of missing, the target’s next attack hits its ally instead?
• Intense crippled. Target randomly suffers knockdown when it attempts to move, or perhaps it begins walking backwards?

In other cases, it would be potentially overpowered:

• Intense chilled. Target’s skill-recharge and movement penalty stacks up until it reaches 100%?
• Intense weakness. Target’s endurance-regen and outgoing damage penalty stacks up until it reaches 100%?

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/easter-eggs-and-references

Xalugami.2096:

Though one explorer-based daily achievement I’ve been wondering where it’s been is “Daily Treasure Hunter – Open x Chests”. That seems like a no-brainer to add in.

Good idea. Here are a few other ones that might work:

• Daily Minidungeoneer – Visit 1 Mini-Dungeon
• Daily Tracker – Discover and confront 2 Guild Bounty Targets (e.g. learn where they roam and talk to them; no combat required)
• Daily Diver – Dive from 3 different locations
• Daily Delver – Tap 3 different Rich resource nodes (based on the assumption that Rich nodes are usually hidden in out-of-the-way locations)
• Daily Opportunist – Recover and use 5 different environmental weapons (e.g. Oakheart branch, Elixir of Heroes, Unexploded Mortar Shell, etc – Warrior banners and Engineer bundles wouldn’t count)

Creeper.9360:

The trinity is not the issue. Encounter design is.

+1

A great example, in my opinion, is the “wave fight” in Citadel of Flame Path 3. I’ve seen groups express disbelief after running in and getting wiped (“what was ANet thinking? This fight is impossible!”), and I’ve also seen a lot of newbie groups (that is, four players being new to P3, plus myself) succeed on the first attempt – simply by explaining the fight ahead of time, choosing roles, and working together.

It’s a tough fight which allows for many possible strategies. The design team set up some basic parameters (moderately tight space, with a “control zone” mechanic so that players cannot kite mobs to a nearby chokepoint), spiced things up by giving the enemy a few area-denial abilities (e.g. caltrops) and then dumped in a variety of different enemies which require different countermeasures (and reward different playstyles). Of particular note:

• Godforged Flame Callers. They have permanent Stability, so many forms of CC are ineffective. Melee-range stacking is possible but dangerous, since the team will take heavy damage from Fire Walls and can be stunlocked by Fire Imp explosions. If you’re patient, you can simply back off and switch to ranged weapons – relying on Piercing projectiles and AoE effects to eliminate most of the summoned Fire Imps. A few Smoke or Reflection fields can greatly reduce the pressure on the team by neutralizing their Fireball projectile attacks.

• Godforged Hellstorms. They deliver high sustained damage (notably un-spikey) at short range, and none whatsoever at long range. Can be kited around by a ranged-heavy team, but the encounter design sets a limit on kiting – ideally, you’ll want to distract them with a Ranger pet or manage distance with Push/Pull skills. If the team is melee-heavy, then CC skills (immobilize, interrupt) are very useful. For higher risk/reward, you can use a Pull effect to yank them together with their alllies into a small space – your melee cleaves and AoE skills will hit more targets, but your melee fighters will be in danger (unless the team can reliably Interrupt the flamethrower attack).

• Godforged Smokelord. Its “Eruption” AoE attack can devastate a stacked team. A melee assault can succeed, but Ash Cloud (pulsing Blindness and damage) will reduce your effectiveness. Ranged kiting would be very effective against this foe, except that the accompanying Shadowblades will tend to chase the team around and cut down isolated players. If your team has a Mesmer or Guardian then you can pull the Smokelord and Shadowblades together, thus reducing pressure on the backline and getting more effectiveness from AoE and cleave attacks (at the cost of increased pressure on the frontline fighters – how many Death Blossom attacks can you dodge?).

It’s possible to get through the fight by stacking berserker Warriors on everything, but the team will probably wipe unless it includes a veteran Guardian and/or Mesmer to provide support and control. There’s simply too much incoming damage which can’t reliably be dodged. You can reduce the emphasis on control if you have a heal-specced Elementalist or Guardian babysitting the zerker DPS players, but if your healer goes down then you’ll be in big trouble.

In my experience, mixed teams tend to fare better. If the frontline players can draw mobs together while evading major attacks, then the backline really can just go through a damage rotation while tossing in an occasional heal, CC field, or interrupt. Of course, the backline players need to remain attentive for new spawns, and must stand ready to assist a frontline player who gets Downed.

Reflection is useful at several stages of the fight, but never game-breakingly so. Enemy HP is high enough that all of your Reflection skills will be on cooldown before the enemy runs out of projectile attacks. “Pull the enemy to the wall, immobilize them, and hit them with AoE attacks” is a very effective technique, but it fails abruptly at Wave 3 (Flame Callers with Stability) – the team must be prepared to switch tactics. High enemy HP also reduces the effectiveness of the “berserker max damage WAAAAAGH” approach: your Downed allies will not reliably Rally before running out of HP (similarly, Vengeance will not reliably result in a kill), so the team needs to have some kind of plan for dealing with casualties (Shadow Refuge, Battle Standard, “I’ll kite while you heal”, etc).

swiftpaw.6397:

I can confirm that this fix works, and what causes it is the cinematic.

Specifically – if your “weapon swap” is on cooldown when the cinematic begins, it will remain unusable until you leave the zone (or until you use the Hero screen to adjust weapons).

Shiren.9532:

Too much of the current dungeon content favours certain professions

As an exercise, let’s try to think of some encounter mechanics which could favour other professions.

• Gate-opening encounter. Four party members must stand on pressure-plates to open a gate, while the fifth player ventures through to completes a puzzle or defeat a special enemy. An Engineer could deploy turrets on the pressure-plates to keep them depressed, thus freeing up several party members to run ahead (and making the beyond-the-gate challenge much easier).
  Admittedly, this is just a rehash of the or Dredge fractal or CoF P1 mechanic, but with a special opportunity for Engineers.

• Defense objective. The party must protect a magical rift to prevent its energies from being corrupted by agents of <whatever>. Enemies will spawn on all sides; the team must survive for <n> minutes while an NPC seals the rift. The rift itself will produce a potent Blast finisher every 5 seconds, centered on its position. A character who can put a Water field under the rift would be able to deliver a steady source of healing to the party; a Dark field on the rift would Blind nearby enemies and help to keep the team alive.

• Sabotage objective. Players must break into the enemy archives and destroy some valuable documents. These are implemented in-game as structures which are resistant to direct damage but are highly susceptible to Burning. A single Flamethrower-wielding Engineer could quickly complete this objective while the remainder of the team fights the archive guards. An Elementalist could setup a few Fire fields in which the team’s Guardians and Warriors could perform Whirl finishers. A Ranger’s Sun Spirit would enable the team to destroy the documents with normal attacks.

Blaeys.3102:

The only thing that needs to be changed is the fiery boulders need to spawn and start moving BEFORE the rock door opens and players move in. That way, the encounter stays the same but all 5 players cant skip it entirely just because of group composition.

This change wouldn’t have any noticeable effect on speedrunning. I’ve occasionally been called upon to create a portal when the boulders are rolling (e.g. because the group is full of newbies who ignored the first portal) and it works fine – a Mesmer can easily walk past the first one or two boulders and Blink past the remaining ones.

epf.2346:

This would eliminate obvious bugs, exploits and general complaints.

Not necessarily. Programmers aren’t freelance troubleshooters; they follow orders. They’re often aware of bugs which cause irritation for players, but their time is allocated onto specific tasks (e.g. “you’ve got three hours to fix the weapon switching bug, then you’re working on netcode optimization for the next two weeks”). Managers assign priority to bug reports (and feature requests) according to their own preferences and business strategies. For instance, they might consider it more important to attract new players (via new content) than retain old ones (with mundane fixes and balance patches). They might prefer to boost Gem Store activity by 20%, even if it means that 5% of players get annoyed and quit.

Also – how would this work, exactly? Would ANet be paying its staff to play videogames for fun on company time (note: this is different from actual playtesting, which is rarely fun at all), or would they be dictating how people spend their evenings and weekends? The former is unlikely, and the latter is probably illegal.

tl;dr forcing programmers to play the game isn’t a panacea

Grackleflint.4956:

Make controlling your enemies actually help the outcome of a fight—not delay the inevitable.

Consider, as an example, the “wave fight” in Citadel of Flame, path 3. Many first-time groups will be wiped by that fight, because the enemy forces have strong offense as well as toughness (which undermines the usual “full berserk gear, charge in, maximize damage, healing is for sissies, rally on kills” approach to CoF).

However, almost all of the enemies in that fight are vulnerable to control effects. The key determinant for success (among the newbie groups that I’ve coached through it) has been coordination and control. If you can keep the team together then the mobs will tend to clump together. Guardians (or Mesmers) can then pull them into a disorganized heap against a nearby wall, and the team can pile on more control effects (chill, immobilize, cripple, blind, smoke, reflection, and even Knockback if it’s used carefully). Enemies will tend to remain “trapped” in a small area, unable to fight effectively, and meanwhile the team can score high damage via AoE attacks and melee-weapon cleave.

A newbie group facing the same encounter without coordinated use of control abilities will tend to get routed rapidly. Enemy fire fields and imps can produce a lot of area-denial; players get chased around by Shadowblades and can’t assist teammates; AoE attacks don’t achieve much because enemies are constantly moving; a single Eruption can takedown several players who are focused on evading an immediate threat.

I think that this example illustrates the concept. A lone Mesmer or Guardian cannot shape the battle with Pull effects – as you said, their efforts will only delay the inevitable. Control can turn a “desperate” battle into one that is merely “intense,” but you need to communicate with your teammates and get everyone to agree on a plan. I think that this is appropriate from a balance perspective. After all, everyone is expected to contribute to damage and healing, so it’s sensible that everyone would contribute to Control as well (even if their role is as simple as “lure mobs towards the scrum so that the Guardian can yank them in”).

HiddenNick.7206:

Why are hearts better than standard quests?

Variety of options. You’re trying to earn someone’s trust, affection, esteem, whatever. There’s no reason why you should need to bring them exactly ten wolf pelts. Renown Hearts recognize general “assistance” acts (e.g. defending the local area from hostiles, healing injured people nearby) in addition to the explicitly-stated objectives (e.g. rounding up Moas). The explicit objectives often include several alternatives, just in case players have difficulty with a particular task (or find it boring). It’s often possible to make progress on a Renown Heart while participating in Dynamic Events nearby.

Since heart completion rewards are automatically mailed to the player, there’s no need to backtrack. Players can explore the map and focus on new/undiscovered content. Players who choose to visit the Heart vendors will occasionally find useful (or amusing) consumables, but won’t gain a huge advantage over those who do not.

Since quest-text (which most people skip anyways) is minimal, Guild Wars 2 fulfills the maxim of “show, don’t tell.” Players learn about NPCs by exploring and fighting alongside them; they learn history by prowling through ruins and assisting scholars; they’re introduced to the problems of each outpost or village and then asked to ameliorate them.

Many of the hearts help to relieve monotony by introducing brief mini-games, special environmental weapons, or transformations. I guess that this isn’t really a unique feature; it could be provided by standard quests as well.

Shiren.9532:

why would anyone bother doing it?

I try to recruit a group of newbies and run it every evening, simply because I like it and I can help people to check it off for the sake of completion/curiosity/whatever. It’s a well-designed dungeon[sup]1[/sup] - a good mixture of puzzle and combat elements, and it puts a huge emphasis on group coordination, communication, and planning[sup]2[/sup]. Every player needs to bring their “A” game for the major fight, almost all of the professions mechanics have some special usefulness at some stage (e.g. engineer turrets during the torch section, guardian wards at the bridge, mesmer clones at the final boss, stealth effects for the bomb tunnel), the combat rewards teamwork and class mastery moreso than path-specific fight strategies, and there are relatively few “screw you” instakill moments. Everyone can contribute, and CoF P3 doesn’t punish people too harshly simply for being new (as opposed to, say, Subject Alpha).

Mostly, though, I enjoy witnessing the reactions of new players. People express a real sense of accomplishment (and/or relief) upon beating the wave-fight after a few attempts. Sometimes I’ll explain the bomb run and drop a portal for the group to use, only to find that a few players have impetuously followed me, eager to beat the puzzle fairly rather than bypass it. And, of course, you can see some hilarious stuff in chat whenever someone gets immobilized and then launched into lava by the Tribune.

1. The time-vs-money ratio is lousy, but the actual intrinsic gameplay content is good. The Drake needs a buff and the Tribune needs an HP reduction, but those are minor quibbles.
2. Admittedly, the “planning” part would would diminish if the dungeon was more popular, since players would simply adopt standard archetypes/roles and expect everyone else to do likewise.

Blackmoon.6837:

So, what are your thoughts? Any ways to expand on my idea?

Have you played a Warrior? There’s a lot of functional overlap here with the Adrenaline/Burst mechanic, which is a problem (risk of confusion between the Super gauge and the adrenaline gauge). Your suggestion would also complicate PvP balance by giving attrition/bunker characters the ability to suddenly deliver a high-damage spike. You mention that the Super attack would be dodge-able, but a player could simply Immobilize their opponent before activating the Super attack. “Consecutive hits” also seems a bit silly or arbitrary (“You were in range and used your skills judiciously, but you received a Blind condition when your arrow was already in-flight and so technically you missed an auto-attack. Say goodbye to all of your charges!”).

Aside from those specific objections, I don’t fully agree with the premise. Auto-attacks are only really boring if you’re fighting at long range. If you close into melee distance then you always have “something to worry about”: trying to lure enemies together in order to improve the effectiveness of friendly AOEs, planning where you’re going to use a Pull skill whose cooldown is almost complete, watching for attack cues and deciding whether to sidestep or use a dodge (or a weapon-skilll evade), deciding whether an ally is hurt badly enough to warrant a switch to Water attunement, determining which target to attack next, figuring out where a Projectile Reflection field would be most useful, trying to determine whether a clone or pet has too much aggro (and, if so, do I need to recall or shatter it?), deciding where to plant banners and turrets, etc. Auto-attacks themselves are a bit boring, but that isn’t a huge problem because they’re just filler – you see them a lot, but your attention is elsewhere.

RedStar.4218:

necromancers being terrible at destroying [structures] because Anet decided to make this class rely on an attribute that serves only one single purpose without giving them any advantage whatsoever.

I can accept this limitation from a lore/background angle – Necromancers manipulate the energies of life and death, so they should be stymied if you ask them to simply bludgeon through a block of inanimate matter. There should be a tradeoff, though, in that they would excel at debilitating and damaging heavily-armored foes who can shrug off normal attacks (e.g. Veteran Supervisors, before ANet changed Righteous Indignation).

Codata.2019:

i am sure they can disable the skipping.

This would be risky. Consider the underwater fractal, wherein players need to eliminate each set of Krait before releasing a prisoner. The Krait occasionally get stuck in the ceiling and it becomes difficult to hit them. Imagine that the same logic applied throughout the game: you could be an hour into an Arah run, but then be forced to start over because a single Risen Chicken somehow glitched into the level geometry and became unkillable.

The appropriate solution to the “problem” of skipping is simply to improve the rewards for defeating mobs and completing bonus objectives. Some players will skip content (because they find the boss fights more fun, or because they enjoy the challenge of evading enemies, or because one member of the party needs to logoff in twenty minutes, or whatever) but others can choose to complete the dungeon “properly” and still earn decent rewards.

Hoyvin.3241:

I imagine it’s the primary key in their user database. Good luck getting them to change that. If not, then I imagine it will come along at some point.

Who the heck would use a string as a primary key? They can definitely make changes; they do it every once in a while if someone uses an account name which violates the TOS (e.g. offensive language).

Majora.6028:

This would allow people to travel cheaper, and also get more people who don’t want to pay a huge amount to buy one and make for a bigger Gold Sink.

Contradiction. If people can save money by using this service then it’s an inferior gold sink.

Mujen.2089:

Plz gtfo this game with skill… plz skill my badunkadunk.. This game promotes tunnel vision, non responsible solo minded gameplay.. don’t gimme that skill bs.. No accountability other than yourself.. it’s like playing solo but with others next to you.

You may want to reconsider Sawnic’s point, since he was talking specifically about a Mesmer serving as a tank. When a Mesmer player is first learning to tank, they’re going to be very tunnel-vision focused on their immediate surroundings (and their skillbar/cooldowns). However, once they’ve learned how to time their dodges and skill activations appropriately, they can expand their attention a bit. For instance, stacking on top of an ally while using [Blurred Frenzy] isn’t ideal, because any melee attacks aimed at you will still hit your friend (and the blur VFX will impair your teammates’ ability to read enemy attack cues). You also start to look for opportunities – instead of using your [Diversion] shatter to interrupt a simple melee attack, you dodge the melee attack and use Diversion to interrupt a dangerous spellcaster (such as a Smokelord’s Eruption). Or you switch targets quickly, drop a Feedback field on a cluster of archers, and then resume your melee-tanking. You don’t even need to switch targets in order to drop a [Temporal Curtain], so if you notice that a teammate is injured and being chased then you can grant them Swiftness and/or Cripple their pursuers.

A tunnel-vision tanking Mesmer will have better personal survival, but a group-aware player in the same role will be more successful – because there’s less pressure on teammates and they can provide assistance in turn (or, perhaps they’ll simply deliver more damage). You’re correct in that the game tends to “promote” the first sort of behaviour (because players learn bad/lazy habits during their PvE leveling career) but it really does reward teamwork.

Alternatively, keep it as-is (in terms of field size, duration, cooldown) but apply a slight “slowness” debuff to enemies within the field. Maybe 25% reduction of attack speed and cooldown rate?

Honestly, though, I’ll still be happy if they don’t touch it at all. It was a bit overpowered for PvE content but it’s still a great ability even after the Quickness change.

ALeetNoob.4830:

Skale venom is no longer its own thing, it doesn’t stack with maintaince oils anymore

On the plus side, Skale Venom now persists for the full 10 minutes even if you get downed or travel to a different area.

runeblade.7514:

Swen.

So Swen wants rewenge against the cwuel centaurs who have enswaved his fwiends and famiwy?

Seriously, though, the content is a bit too “dark” for GW2. It would be tough to include graphic descriptions of slave labour and infant-murder while maintaining a “Teen” ESRB rating.

We already have Meta events which can result in parts of the map becoming overrun with hostiles. It (probably) wouldn’t be too difficult to add a “Daily World-changer” achievement for participating in meta event chains.

The closest thing that we’re likely to get is the Precursor scavenger hunt. I don’t really like the idea of a storyline culminating in a Legendary, for several reasons:

• Legendary weapons aren’t Soulbound, and some classes are simply better at PvE than others. The whole experience can’t be very dramatic or personal if you’re just planning to transfer the reward item to an alt at the end (or, worse yet, if you just plan to sell your Legendary on the Trading Post!).
• it would diminish the idea that possession of a Legendary weapon reflects experience/mastery of multiple aspects of the game (exploration, gathering, crafting, trading, dungeons, WvW, etc).
• if the player-effort requirement was consistent with the current Legendary weapon crafting process, then the storyline would need to include hundreds of hours of new content. If the majority of players go through the content, then everyone will have a Legendary and they won’t be special anymore. If few players go through it, then the development work is essentially wasted. Considering the amount of effort involved, ANet might as well just put out an actual expansion pack instead.
• choosing a specific Legendary weapon at the end of the story seems inappropriate. Shouldn’t the storyline have been guided towards a particular weapon from the start, talking to explorers and researchers affiliated with it, journeying through dungeons related to the weapon’s element, perhaps defeating a specific “keeper” of that weapon as a final boss? Putting a single choice at the end would also be a huge hazard for players (“I spend three months grinding the storyline for my Legendary and accidentally clicked the wrong one PLEASE LET ME SWAP!”). Of course, having separate storylines for each weapon would just make the whole idea even more expensive/impractical from a development perspective.

SilverWF.4789:

Rox? Who is she? Vigil leader?

Rox is a Charr with disturbingly large eyes, as shown in the F&F part 3 preview. Or maybe it’s just a bad photo.