Guild Wars 2

Didn’t GW1 group unidentified items by rarity? I seem to remember blue, purple and brown/gold ‘trash’/salvage items that were indicative of what level rune you would get when salvaged?

They really should do that here, if they stick with this thing.

Just did this fight yesterday with my very squishy zerker Ele.
It wasn’t ‘hard’… and I enjoyed everything leading up to Caudecus. The NPCs were actually useful!

However, the final part was very frustrating. Firstly that stupid room. The first thing I noticed was that my camera went absolutely insane. The room was so cramped I could not see anything going on. There was so much aoe spam… the only thing I focused on was running around the room, not what the boss was doing. It was just far too cramped.

Throwing bloodstone shards was fine! What I found strange was that I would avoid all the aoes, activate my special action button in time and then dodge roll Caudecus’s bizarre teleport attack. But then I’d find myself taking large amounts of random damage inexplicably. It just felt really weird…

It just didn’t feel like a ‘neat’ boss fight. It just felt a bit mashed together with lots of random elements crammed into a tiny room. Poor design I think.

They barely have half a brain cell to rub together, so I don’t think any time soon :P

They’re an oxygen-thieving waste of space race, that does nothing and get pushed around by everyone else.

Fooooo the Quaggan.

I bet they taste nice though.

(Post made mostly in semi-jest…)

I’m genuinely very surprised to see almost entirely buffs.

However I do feel a little bit…. hard to describe.
They are nice changes and some of the skills needed it!

But… I just feel that there are other things that needed more love first.
I think because the skill updates come so rarely, I just want to see a bit more… across all professions, not just elementalist.

Tbh I might expect the usual nerf or two, using the traditional garbage Anet logic that makes no sense.

However, I just have a bad feeling that we’ll see no changes whatsoever. The thing I really liked about GW1 is that usually, all classes would see get at least some love in a balance update. The changes were also fairly transparent, meaning there (usually) weren’t any nasty surprises. I would always come away feeling that we had gained something.

However, the ‘skill updates’ in GW2, despite being less frequent, are usually just tooltip fixes and minor number tweaking. If they go beyond that, usually it’s a very serious mechanical nerf to a skill that we aren’t given advanced warning about. It’s like they put no effort whatsoever into thinking about balance. With GW2 balance updates, I always come away with a bitter taste in my mouth…

“So… we buffed Shatterstone with an extra stack of vulnerability, but we also raised the CD of all shouts by 40 seconds because lolz”

I really wish they would spend at least one patch, thinking really deeply about balance, prioritising it over skins, Black Lion Trading Post etc.

1) Ideally I would really like this… I just think it’d be really difficult to make it work in a practical sense. Indeed, I just wonder how it would play out for newer players yet to defeat Zhaitan.

2) Maybe… Who knows?

3) I’m just hoping that Marjory fancies some hunky piece of Mursaat to keep her warm at night. The ‘hairs on her neck stand up on end’…. I think she’s into him. We can only hope…

I’d love a good love triangle, maybe followed by a last minute dash to the Asura Gate.

Realistically, I’d think characters speaking out of turn against the commander is bad…
But I quite like the characters to also have a backbone.

Marjory has always been loyal up until now so I’m thinking she must have a good reason to have been a bit short.

I’m hoping she ends up dating Lazarus and dumps her bimbo girlfriend. She deserves to be loved by a strong independent Mursaat, who don’t need no man. Lazarus is so dreamy…

I expect the Shatterstoner.

All skills are changed to Shatterstone. All traits add an extra stack of vulnerability to Shatterstone. The elite skill is Elite Shatterstone, which has an extra stack of vulnerability.

The offhand is now Shatterstone.

Fear the might of Shatterstone!

Shatterstone needs another stack of vulnerability…

“We noticed that elementalists weren’t using scepter as much as other weapons. We added one extra stack of vulnerability on Shatterstone to make this weapon more viable…”

Anet has always loved to target the core of elementalist gameplay… so expect more Shatterstone changes in the future /sarcasm

I don’t know whether I agree entirely with the OP…

I think the areas in core GW2 are pretty good. Ultimately, they’re designed for players who are at lots of different stages in the game. So I think they serve their purpose well in that regard. I would say that they’re an appropriate challenge for people of that level. However, that’s not to say things have become a little bit tiresome and some slightly more ‘challenging’ events could be added to maps, which would give an incentive for high level players to revisit areas.

Maps with world bosses, e.g. the starter zones, I think are in a much better state than they were. The Fire Element was just horrificly powerful around launch, and the ‘Great Jungle Worm’ was pathetic. I don’t think that they should be drastically overhauled, they’re in starting areas!! Yes, they’re a world boss and I do think it should have a little challenge, but Shatterer style coordination would be ridiculous at this stage.

HoT and post content I think fulfils the challenge criteria pretty well? I mean almost all the maps require coordination if you want to get high level rewards… I think Anet is going in the right direction in this regard. Even the mobs seem a bit more cleverly designed. The worst kind of challenge for me is just upping the HP on mobs and giving them insta-kill attacks. I like challenges that are more dynamic than that, which I think Anet has achieved somewhat…

In conclusion, I think the core game is relatively ok… but could do with some minor tweaks and additions. However, if anything, I’d say HoT and beyond are pushing for more challenging content in PVE… So I think OP’s concerns are unfounded.

Though I would add, that I think some content in HoT requires a ridiculous time investment. People with families, kids etc, can’t always afford to stay on the same map for 90 minutes… So this is something I’d like to see altered in future content

NPCs are always hit and miss. It’s quite sad!

Sometimes they’ll pull off some miraculous feats of resurrection. Other times I will be downed at their feet and they’ll just be standing there, doing absolutely nothing :’(

I don’t expect them to solo anything. I’m happy to accept that they’re simply meat shields, but sometimes they don’t even do that properly

Not really an issue in most fights, but sometimes it can be really frustrating if you miss a dodge roll, end up downed and they do nothing. More consistency would be great.

I expect either nothing, or overall nerfs with a single buff to Shatterstone to compensate.

The balance team are pretty errm….
I don’t think balancing is their strong point.

Leiloni.7951:

Agreed that it would make sense to allow the player to stand in the shield. It would also prevent a lot of frustration. From what I learned the gliding and updrafts are not bugged, they’re just poorly designed and take several failures to figure out.

I was so mad and ready to quit when I did this but I was afraid I’d have to redo the entire part of the story that led up to the fight so I kept going. Several failures later and lots of forum research, I figured it out.

1. The only gliding masteries you need are the ones the story tells you to get. I’m sure others help, but they’re not needed.
2. You shouldn’t die after one hit by a rock. You may need more HP, but also have shields, invul skills, or heals on hand for when you do. Try to get more HP and Invulnerability skills if you do nothing else – it saved my butt!
3. The updrafts don’t work like any other updraft in the game (DUMB). Do NOT glide into them, do not press F, do not do anything at all. Just walk into them, that’s it. Walk and it will throw you into the air immediately – then, you will need to open your wings so you don’t fall.
4. When you see a rock coming at you, stop gliding for a second to dodge them. It worked every time easily when I did this. Just let go of the button for a second as it comes toward you and then glide again quickly.
5. Gliding in circles above the updrafts keeps you in the air along with the occasional rock.

This is useful advice!

Although for point 2, you instantly fall to the floor and start taking insane damage right? Using a healing skill would probably result in death during the cast time.
Invul skills as you say, may allow you to make it to an updraft just in time (and pray that it lifts you up!). Otherwise, I don’t see how else you’d survive being hit

Sorry, I just had to nitpick

Your advice is great, especially point 4. This seems to be the best method for rock dodging.

Yeah, I think she has genuine regret.

However, she also needs a good slap to sort her out.

Randulf.7614:

If I remember correctly, it was designed in mind for stealth gliding mastery to have some use/meaning here.

I was trying this initially, but no matter when I stealth, he will always target me with a rock. I suspect the White Mantle in Bloodstone Fen learned their rock throwing technique from this guy, although their range is arguably more ridiculous

I did complete the mission! So thanks for all the suggestions.
In addition to the branch, cancelling gliding for a split second also seems to work.

I do still stand by wanting minor qol changes to the mission though. I don’t think it’s a ‘difficult’ mission overall… I just think that collectively, it’s a really long, drawn out grind fest. Having the whole fight reset for a small slip up is sad

onevstheworld.2419:

You can also land on one of the branches in the northern part of the map, which blocks the rocks. It’s the one you look straight at when you go to the penalty area.

Oh wow!
Thanks man, I’ll give this a try

Yes, I call it the downed shuffle!
Have noticed multiple instances of this.

Hello

I finally got past the first rock throwing stage in the Hearts and Minds mission!!

However, just as the second stage began, the final boss threw a rock at me at the exact moment I ‘took to the skies’. This caused it to instantly hit me and I fell down and died…

Just wondering if you could add the option of allowing the playable character to actually take shelter under Braham’s barrier? Obviously, this would give noob players like myself a better chance of beating this mission solo. Awesome players can then focus on their ‘avoiding the rock’ achievement.

Or can you please please please stop the rocks from causing an instant death?
One sugestion could be to reduce the hit stun from a rock and allow the character to re-glide after being hit.

You could be playing immensely well, but a single stray rock leads to an instant mission reset. Was this genuinely intended? I know it’s a big rock! But falling onto an electrified floor and dying from a single hit is pretty sad design. There’s almost no chance of recovery.

Otherwise I have no issues with this mission. I just think it would be a nice quality of life change to maybe… modify it slightly?

Also, I’m wondering why Braham would be like:
“Lolz, you can’t stand under my barrier. Take your chances in the skies while an evil thingy throws rocks at you.”

Some people are really selfish…

I don’t understand why people have to complain about non-issues that have no negative impact, but actually benefit a huge number of players.

I’ve experienced this too

To be honest this whole mission is a buggy mess.

It’s encouraged me to log on more.
I’ll check to see how ‘quick’ the PvE dailies are. If they’re quick, I’ll do them lol.

I’m a bit of a cheapskate, but in the past I’d be reluctant to do dailies that were in ‘far away’ places that incurred WP costs haha. This makes me more likely to do dailies that take place in ‘far’ places.

I’m currently keeping the level 80 booster as an instant teleport for Maguuma Wastes dailies… I’m that cheap.

Let’s be honest, the future lies in a small buff to Shatterstone.
This will be the crux of the Ele changes…

“The extra vul stack on Shatterstone has opened up numerous builds to the Ele and we realise that this could have a significant impact on the metagame. Thus Elementalist mobility skills have had their effectiveness reduced”.

You know, something like that.

Hello

So I’ve been trying to do this stupidly convoluted final mission.

I tried doing this a few months ago, but I kept encountering an issue when fighting Mordremoth. For a change, it’s not the vents!

When Caithe is brought into the fight and the rift is opened, she should become susceptible to the rift move. However, in my last two attempts she has resumed attacking me. She becomes completely immune to the rift (immune flags up on her character whenever the rift is used) and thus the mission cannot be completed… unless of course you die and try getting back to that point.

I’ve also noticed some slightly weird behaviour with Eir. Maybe it’s not a bug, but her revive speed has been drastically increased. I am aware she now teleports, but during my latest attempt, there were at least two points in the fight where she instantly revived Garm before any CC could be applied to her. Just seems very… inconsistent.

I don’t mind a challenge, but this mission is so long and drawn out, I wish we didn’t have to start at the beginning stage of each fight. Especially when you fail due to a glitch. I’ve noticed this mission has glitched in many different ways for many different people. I really don’t want the answer to be ‘keep trying until it doesn’t glitch!’ but I have a feeling this is the only solution… but any input would be much appreciated

I really just want to finish the game.

Penalty box is the worst!!!

Seriously, at least let us back into the fight.
Solo, I just wish everything didn’t reset because I got hit by a single stray rock…

Many salient points from all!

Though I would argue that we didn’t know that Tonn would sacrifice himself.
We knew he was putting himself in danger, but Tonn assured us that he would make it out. (Unless I’m making this up).

Regardless, he did an amazing thing! A loved one sacrificing themself doing a noble deed. Obviously this will cause a large amount of grief, but then remaining family/friends should be proud and come to appreciate how special they were.

Ceera remains hysterical… I guess grief affects everyone differently.

RoseofGilead.8907:

The death of a loved one isn’t something one gets over easily, especially when the death was as traumatic as Tonn’s. And if the person who indirectly “caused” the death of that loved one pops up in someone’s life, the bereaved might be less than cordial or even downright hostile towards that person for a good, long while. And yeah, it wasn’t our fault, and any person thinking rationally knows that. However, Ceera isn’t thinking rationally because she’s still heavily grieving, even after three years. On top of that, she’s currently patching up soldiers who were nearly blown to bits/killed by Mordy minions; and she also was on one of those airships that was destroyed in hostile territory. Honestly, she’s one of the few characters acting like a “normal person” would in that situation; everyone else (player character included) seems to be on some really impressive anti-anxiety or anti-depression meds to be coping as well as they do.

I do wish that we had a dialogue option to defend ourselves in some way, though.

True… I guess if you love someone very much and you lose them, I can expect a long grieving process. I imagine attaching the blame to us was more of a coping mechanism.

But she has to let go! She has to understand that we’re doing everything we can to literally save the world. We’re not the monster she makes us out to be… Besides, we do end up saving her life. I just wish the playable character was able to voice a defense.

Perhaps I was too harsh on her though… You have made me partially rethink

Yeah… I feel video games seem to gloss over post-traumatic stress with characters seemingly unphased by situations that would be horrifying in real life. Maybe it’s the water they drink in Tyria?

Hello

I just wanted to rant about this dumb-kitten Asura, who seriously needs a good slap. Ok… so on one of my characters, I did the Tonn storyline.

So the first time entering… Auric Basin? I see this Ceera, and I’m like wow.
So I go say hello. You’d think after all these years she’d be a little more rational, but she was a nasty horrible cow. I don’t like how we’re not given a chance to defend ourselves, back during the Sad Duty mission and now. The playable character has saved like billions of lives!

I know it’s really sad that Tonn died, but that wasn’t our fault! If the dumb-kitten Pale Tree hadn’t asked us to choose something we fear the most, Tonn wouldn’t have died.
She should take her anger out at her.

Regardless, the ship needed to be destroyed because otherwise, really bad things would have happened. I know that death/loss can make people emotional and irrational… but it’s totally not our fault that Tonn sacrificed himself

I just don’t like that this dumb-kitten gets the last word in. I mean, we saved her life! (Although technically now I just use a speed boost before she runs into that Risen filled cave- but that’s not the point!). If I were the playable character, I would slap that ugly, ungrateful Asura across the face.

Seeing her in Auric Basin acting all high and mighty led me to post this rant.

Thank you

Yeah it’s a bit of a nuisance…
I’ve noticed this issue too.

SkyShroud.2865:

That will be too complicated, to both the developer and people who actually plays the game as a whole.

I mostly disagree…

GW1 worked extremely well with the skills split. The sheer number of skills in GW1 made balancing a nightmare!! But they coped well enough! People coped very well with it too and were appreciative.

In this game, we have far fewer skills, but the complication of WvW. So the system is more complex in GW2. However… I guess we can’t really deny that without a skill split, some skills are going to suffer in one game mode due to their efficacy in another.

It’s quite frustrating, especially as a PvE player, to see a skill nerfed because it’s OP in PvP… I really want there to be balance between the game modes, but whether that will happen is probably unlikely…

People aren’t idiots. I highly doubt it will be confusing for the player base at all.
Well some people are, but you know.

egzius.9031:

Whereas PVE: participate, help, work together. See a problem?

No, sorry

I think a Sylvari might be nice for multicultural reasons.

Canach was like… the only member of the team who revived me during the HoT storyline. Braham did occasionally, but Canach would always go out of his way to revive me. Marjory was seriously the worst. Is she even programmed to revive? She literally just stands there and is completely useless. I know she’s a Necromancer, but I think she’s a disgraceful human being.

Anyway, yeah… I always thought it would be nice to have one of each race and one of each profession. To be a really multicultural team… Not a team that discriminates against other races or professions.

However, I do feel that we’ve had Sylvari shoved down our throats. In addition to contributing to our vegetable intake, Sylvari keep getting shoehorned into everything.

I do think that the team needs a Sylvari though, for sake of balance. If you can have two savage beasts on the team, we can at least have a semi-competent tree. Even with salad for brains, I’m sure they could probably do something useful before wilting.

Aww man, Anet should have followed in the footsteps of NERC with a poll open to submissions

The apostrophe in Dragon’s Watch could refer to Glint?
Maybe they’re working in the memory of Glint or something.

I would have liked something continuing the Destiny’s Edge name.

Maybe… Destiny’s Child? And then they eventually disband and then like Braham goes on to become an incredibly awesome hero, and everyone else kinda just fades… and they try to stay afloat by becoming judges on e.g. Tyria’s Got Talent. Rox and Rytlock get put in the circus because they’re savage animals…

I think ideas are like cream, good ones rise to the top.

May the stars guide Anet in reading your post and potentially making changes.
Or else, let’s play investigators! I’ll be Kasmeer ok?

Meh, waste of space race that aren’t even worth corrupting.
They’re just a burden on other races that can actually take care of themselves.

Foo the Quaggan!

I’d like a story where the Quaggans become prized because their skin makes incredible clothing. Then this evil Krait witch wants to kidnap all the Quaggan, and manages to assemble 101 Quaggan in a Krait cave. She then starts an incredibly fashionable clothing line and rises to fame. However, she struggles to cope with the stresses of fame and the story kinda revolves around these struggles.

However, with support from the playable character, we encourage her to believe in herself. She overcomes her personal problems and becomes a strong, independent Krait witch who don’t need no man.

Hello!

A bit of a strange bug, that has only happened to me once in the game, but just thought I may as well report it anyway.

So, having played the Personal Story numerous times, I was desperately skipping every cutscene in this mission. I also had the W key (i.e. move forward) button pressed, in order to save a little bit of time when the cutscene ended.

After the cutscene outside the dig site with Agent Zrii and erm that other person, my controls got magically ‘reversed’ and the camera became completely distorted.

It seemed that the sideways movement keys spun my camera around in circles, and the backwards button (S) caused me to move forwards by backstepping. The forwards button (W) caused me to run fowards in the opposite direction to which the character was originally facing.

I thought maybe I messed up my camera/movement controls so I had a play around with first person camera, changing movement and camera control keys etc, but nothing seemed to have worked. My character’s movement and the camera were just bizarre.

It was pretty trippy and unplayable at that point, so I just logged out and back in, and all was resolved.

I doubt that this bug is particularly reproducible, but wanted to raise it anyway

As an ele main:

Eles are amazing in PvE. However, the levelling experience is…. a bit… irritating until you start unlocking traits. You might have a more positive experience now than I did, considering how much the trait system has changed.

If you use scepter or dagger, you’re in for a world of continuous clicking which I hate. However, staff is absolutely amazing. I have a very lazy way of playing open world PvE. I essentially spam lava font, fireball, flameburst… everything dies. You tag all the mobs. You get loot. Not that this is necessarily a ‘professional’ way to play the game, but I love it.

Once you start unlocking your traits, you’re essentially set. You’ve got damage, perma-swiftness, water is great for restoring your health. You’re relatively self sufficient.

I would say it can be quite tricky because you’re essentially made of glass. So… there’s a learning curve involved. I feel that eles are more dependent on their traits than other profs. However, I really had a blast with my ele.

By all means try out scepter/dagger, but once I hit 30, I switched to staff and never looked back. Easily my favourite PvE profession. Once levelled, your staff will just slaughter mobs. If partaking in open-world PvE and world boss events, I honestly think ele just outshines the other two

However… if you want to try more serious PvE-related things, e.g. Dungeons/Fractals… Eles have a pretty steep learning curve I believe.

In terms of necro:

I do like necro… I just found it extremely boring. On the plus side, I very rarely died as a necromancer. Reaper however, is a billion times better than Tempest! They’re so cool.

Necromancers are a forgiving profession I think

In terms of mesmer:

Although I have levelled my mesmer to 80….
I don’t feel strongly enough to say ‘hey! go for mesmer’

I do like mesmers. However, maybe it fits your love of thief? With all the deception/illusions stuff going on…

Positives
Gliding in central Tyria is the best thing ever!!!
Most of the general changes are all awesome improvements.
Gliding.

Negatives
The skill balancing.
Scepter Ele really needs more love than it got.
Diamond Skin is awful.
Ele balancing in general is pretty horrendous.

Positive Summary
I think the general quality of life improvements, and particularly gliding in central Tyria are amazing. I think it’s really impressive for a quarterly update

Critical Summary
I guess my main qualm is that if skill balancing is only going to happen on this quarterly basis, then I expect these changes to be more…. substantial? Looking at what has currently changed…. it looks like no thought went into it.

Even then, most of the changes are garbage ‘band aid’ fixes, that don’t really target the core of a specific issue, e.g. Shatterstone??? I don’t expect complete reworks all at once, but it just seems to be an extremely lazy attempt at saying ‘hey, we balanced!’.

GW1 skill updates were always really exciting. I am almost never excited about GW2, as clearly, the most exciting changes we can hope for are either nerfs, or really bizarre buffs that noone asked for.

At least the next time I hear “quality of life changes”, I can expect a 1 second cd reduction on Shatterstone.

I guess the name for that item is appropriate :P

Hope it gets fixed soon!

Supreme.3164:

The only thing I’m excited about is the unblockable gale…..the rest is meh, it won’t change much for current ele…really a huge disappointement

From now I will laugh every time the devs propose to buff ele scepter, by the way they’re going if we’re lucky, ele scepter will be viable by 2030

Actually, GW1 elementalists received significant updates and overhauls…
around five years after release anyway?

I think it was the last significant balance update before GW2 was released?

So, you might get what you wish for! …
(In the timescale you have suggested…)

Rodzynald.5897:

It’s been quite a while, spoilers are bound to happen. It is hard but it is true, who played HoT story until now, is save. Those who didn’t well… gotta deal with it, it’s not like everyone is gonna stay put and quiet just beacuse a some people didn’t get HoT or didn’t finish their story.
On the other hand a little [HoT Spoiler] in this thread is advised.

I’m totally fine with that.
I don’t expect the world to wait for me to finish it

However, as this is the general GW2 discussion forum, I’d kinda hope people were a bit more considerate in using spoiler tags

The game is only a few months old after all… Regardless, I don’t take things like this too seriously. Just a thought for others?

Spoilers?????

That’s not very nice

MyPuppy.8970:

Scepter disappointment? I never had any scepter expectations.

This :P

Yeah, it’s probably my favourite addition.

For me, it just adds something ‘new’ to the game. Being able to revisit old places and just glide around feels really refreshing.

I’m pretty much running up small slopes just to get a little bit of gliding in when going from place to place.

If skill balancing is ignored, I quite like a few of the additions/changes

If skill balancing is taken into consideration, scepter Ele is now unstoppable.
Thanks for your quality of life changes!!!

You really hit the nail on the head…

Axialbloom.8109:

Will the new Diamond Skin stop the might of Shatterstone?

Don’t be ridiculous.

Nothing can stop the might of Shatterstone thanks to its new buff.
I really think they hit at the core of Ele scepter issues with this change.

Thanks Anet

Oooh, maybe a CD reduction on Shatterstone.
Honestly, ele scepter play will be revolutionised.

I would like a small storyline about a disease being developed that targets Quaggans and decimates their numbers.

Either that, or a story where Marjory and Kass get pet Quaggans. Then the Quaggans breed and have like… 15 quaggan tadpoles. Though it’s really tense because they thought one of the tadpoles had died.

Anyway, there is this evil woman called erm… Bluella de Ville. And she like, wants the tadpoles so that they can be skinned to make a Quaggan coat. So she arranges to have them kidnapped, and is successful.

Then they get taken to a mansion with like… 84 other tadpoles. And we’re involved in a stealth operation to rescue them. Just as the tadpoles are about to die, the two parent Quaggans burst in and start fighting.

Then everyone escapes.

Then Marjory and Kasmeer are wondering where to put all the Quaggans, because they can’t afford to keep them all. Luckily, they all get the Quaggan disease and die.

Yeah… Warrior and Ranger came to mind for me.
Maybe minion master Necromancer?

Stay away from Elementalist, Engineer and possibly Mesmer!!
You might get away with staff ele and lava font spam… but they’re quite squishy so…

I would say Warrior or Ranger.

Hi

I was wondering if there was any reason why the start point for this personal story step is like… a million miles away from the Priory?

However, once you enter the mission, you get warped to the Priory to fight.
After you finish, you get warped back to the stupidly far location.

Was this intentional?

Just seems really silly.