Guild Wars 2

You mention problems concerning rmb and autotargetting. Has your wife tried the Action Camera Mode?https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Action_Camera_Mode

I too remember having issues when I started playing. I have been using Action Camera since HoT and it makes targetting and movement way easier. It has some limitations but I would say it is very beginner friendly.

Also, with rifles it is nice since you get a targetting reticle, that stays center of the screen and lets you aim and turn with your mouse at the same time.

I use this cheap skin, that I think is pretty classy looking, and aegis fits in perfectly as well. Nothing too fancy but I like it.

Just a flesh wound.3589:

That’s true. But then guys use these undercounts of females to declare that not many females play. Women have learned from other MMOs not to speak on voice chat because guys start harassing them. They’ve learned not to tell guys they are female for the same reason (‘go to the kitchen and make me a sammich’ jokes get old fast too). I don’t know the % but the fact that this thread has 7 self announced females out of 17 posters and the rest either male or unknown suggests that that females aren’t that rare.

It is definitely more than the stated 3%. Based on my experiences in GW2 I would say that at least 25% are female, might be more. I think ppl assume that girls don’t play that much games and while they might not play as much as guys, they certainly play more than the guys think.

I was positively surprised when I started raiding and in every raid group there was always one girl on team speak, and only about half of the ppl actually talk on ts. So if out of 5 ppl there is one female that would mean that 1/5=20% are female. And when we factor in the possibility that girls might not be comfortable to speak on voice chat we get even higher numbers.

But on the “because guys start harassing them” (if they speak in voice chat and let others know they are girls) I would say that I have not encountered such thing, not in GW2 at least. The community seems pretty mature, kind and welcoming towards everyone.

There are already some skins that are similar across classes, mostly gemstore head pieces.

In SWTOR there are armor weight classes, but then there is also “adaptive armor” that you can wear on any class.

I would like to see gemsore armor skins that you can wear on any class, shouldn’t be that hard to implement.

Death by thousand cuts d/d condi ranger GO!!

What I noticed is that I’m never excited about any loot in this game, it is more likely “oh no, more crap to flood my inventory… aand no more salvage kits left…”

I think it is just the way GW does loot, everyone gets their own loot and the same enemy can be looted multiple times, meaning that everyone will just get some crappy masterwork items. You don’t even get to see anything exciting.

In some other mmos loot is shared in your party. This allows better drops, and even tho you don’t get the cool item that drops, at least you see someone get it and think “Oh man, what a cool drop, that could have been me, maybe next time”.

Well the link bellow is what I have been fooling around with, the idea is to have almost permanent uptime on symbol of faith and cover the entire point with it healing allies and damaging enemies.

With mender amulet you have healing and “damage”, I’m yet to try magi tho.

And the picture attachment is from an unranked match that was pretty weird, got some pretty stats so I took a picture.

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vVAQNApeTn8cCVDhtDBOCB8DhlGi6aYXgAArAOuRQ+4T+nH-TpBBQBHc/BAcEAaYZAKcCAuwDAIAHCAA

Alexander.6250:

Thief:
1) Ambush: Summon an npc that deals super low dmg, how very useful!
2) Thieves Guild: same problem: the thieves are just underpowered.
3) Ice drake Venom: 4 seconds of chill isn’t all that great.

Supposedly there is a condi build in WvW that uses thieves guild, venoms can be shared with summons so you get a pretty good condi bomb. It basically triples the effect of poisons.

Was doing the mission with a pug group and it was super tedious and chaotic. We managed to get to the last fight and used the rift to get rid of the break bar but didn’t have enough damage to finish off the boss. After that, nothing… no enemies no rift.. gg.

Tried to use the /stuck command to reset the boss but it just throws you out without any means of getting bask to the boss.

And another thing I noticed, hearts and minds is far easier (and faster) to solo than to do with a random pug group. What I mean is that with more ppl there are more variables and more things that can go wrong. Not to mention mobs becoming stronger with scaling and ppl not pulling their weight makes fights take forever.

I soloed the mission with a zerk druid and I don’t really get why ppl keep saying it is hard and search for a group. Then again, ranger is probably the greatest solo profession and I haven’t finished hot with my alts yet so I don’t really know how it is with others.

And someone saying that there is nothing wrong with the defiance bar thing at 25% when the rift doesn’t appear again, it is not supposed to be your typical breakbar, it is a buff that the boss has: “Invulnerable to all but Rift Overcharge.” You are not supposed to be able to break it with cc but apparently when te bug happens you can do it for some reason. This is stated in the wiki: “In the final phase of the fight, sometimes Mordremoth’s defiance bar wont be broken after activating the rift and a new rift will not appear. If that happens he is immune to all attacks, but the bar can now be broken using crowd control skills such as Knockback or Chill.”

Might start playing again after this, been checking the forums for some updates that would get me to launch GW2 again
#ImFree

DutchRiders.2871:

Avarice.2791:

Obtena.7952:

Avarice.2791:

Cyninja – I mean ascended armor does provide a stat boost however small. Saying it isn’t worth it is a matter of perspective, but mathematically wrong…

Actually if you look at the cost to stats ratio of Exotic and Ascended gear, I think it’s not mathematically wrong at all. In fact, it’s even more evident that Ascended gear is not really worth the cost. It’s a luxury and luxuries are only ‘worth it’ if the cost doesn’t mean much to you.

Sure, but I view 600g +- chests as worth it for the gain in stats as many players do. It’s all perspective and really not up to the player to dictate what groups require. What you are arguing has been discussed above. What I was saying is the gain in stats with always be mathematically beneficial for a group that is progressing.

Personally I avoid full ascended players (unless they are in speed running groups or use expensive stat sets like vipers), cause who in his right mind would think ascended armor is worth it? Usually they use bad rotations and kitten up.

Met this ranger once in a fractal group, he had full ascended armor and weapon (visible skins). All he did was camp longbow and autoattack. I think he was using celestial stats, at least the longbow skin was celestial, and he soaked damage like nothing. Just made me wonder how that is even possible.

First I tought that it must be some kid playing on a parent’s account or meybe he is drunk but after seeing so many afwul players with asc gear I don’t really know anymore.

At legendary, do ppl have really any incentive to bring their ace-game?

Also, since there is no pause feature in PvP(not that I’m aware of) then if something comes up in irl (doorbell or call from mom), since you have nothing to lose then why not take the call right away.

Pretty similar situation with some ppl with asc gear, legendary weapons, all masteries etc just standing around and chatting, they have nothing to work for so why not just relax.

So why not play hotjoin then? Actually I don’t really get why anyone would play hotjoin… To my experience, in hotjoin everyone just wants to be in the winning team and ppl in the losing team just leave, leaving the game 3 v 5 or something… And most of them are titled like “red team wins” so I don’t really see any fun in that.

How about unraned then? Well I guess everyone saw what it can be like when ranked was disabled. If I would get to legendary I think I would play exactly how I wanted, whatever builds I wanted and not give a kitten what ppl think.

I think the system would work better if there was a visible mmr and at certain mmr you would get certain rewards. This way it would be the mmr that gives you the bragging rights and you would actually care about not losing. It would also give a better representation of player’s skill than divisions. Matches would also be more even if mmr was used to balance the teams. Maybe there could be a title that adjusts and shows your mmr if you want to show off.

Funny, just the other day I was wondering that it would be nice to teach the game what I regard as junk items so that when I press the “sell junk items” it would sell all those runes and sigils as well.

NeXeD.3042:

Dude I’m being pretty clear here and you just keep coming back with stuff like please elaborate, I’m lazy man like really lazy. But in my opinion blaming problems on things out of your control is a cop out. I’m really not sure how hard that is to comprehend.

You control yourself so that should be the biggest factor for you, blaming others for losses is a total b move.

Unless of course you can assure me with 100% certainty that you played perfectly no mistakes and perfect rotations then by all means blame everyone else. Then again I’ve seen great players make mistakes

I feel that it is a whole different discussion who to blame on a loss. In my opinion it is not that “my team was weaker than the enemy” but rather “we as a team were weaker than the enemy”. So no point in blaming it all on team mates or on yourself if they or you didn’t make some huge mistakes.

PvP is a team effort, it is not about blaming the team if you say that your team has more importance than your personal skill. Of course you can’t expect the team to do everything and carry you to victory, but you can neither say that you matter more than the 4 others. Of course skill matters and you should do your best and get better but in a team game it is the collective skill of the team that matters.

But I think your point in all of this is that some ppl say that skill doesn’t matter and it is all matchmaking rng and blame all on that.

Sirbeaumerdier.3740:

-snip-

Don’t get me wrong. Skill is important and significant in the equation. But is it more important than the teammate you are dealt in the equation? No. It plain can’t.

Good post btw, I sometimes have a bad habbit to not read what has been said below the post that I comment on. You pretty much made my point here.

You are only 1/5 of the team so, in a single match, personal skill is not more important than the team. But I would say that in a long run, across multiple matches, personal skill adds up and allows you to climb the ladder. So in solo-q personal skill becomes more important. But you are right, in a single match it doesn’t matter unless you are actually way better than others (and of course everyone is, kappa) and have good leadership skills to direct other players. But when it comes to forming a team, the importance of your personal skill is exactly 1/5 of the team.

that baby stealing dingo.7216:

OK, I revise my post:

Matchmaking>Who purchased HOT>Team> Class>Build >Gear>Skill

Unless some of you are carrying your team using a non-HOT build with Cleric’s or some other garbage gear, which case I’d love to hear about it.

I fail to see the logic in that… If Hot matters more than the team then build should also matter more than the team since build is tied to hot. Also, with hot, class should matter less than the build since hot builds are undeniably stronger. Also hot can’t matter more than class and build since hot, by itself, doesn’t add anything, it is an integral part of the build.

Also, I think that it is pretty much pointless to include build and gear into this since everyone is running the same metabuilds anyway… Further more, how is matchmaking any different from the team? Matchmaking makes the team so I think it should be replaced with “enemy team” instead. And while we are at it I would say that the team also includes classes and builds as a whole “team composition”.

So umh… what do we have left? Team, enemy team and skill? In one match I would say that your personal skill matters the least since you are only one of 5. So first you should have a good team and then worry about the enemy team and their comp. Altho if you want to move in divisions you can do that either with a good team or personal skill (or luck).

So simply put:

For solo: Skill > Team > Enemy team
For party: Team > Enemy team > Skill

Ragion.2831:

I’d really like to hear from the studio why they think outfits should exist, instead of releasing them as armour so we can actually mix them up.

The worst part is the outfits are often times better designed than armour. The blatant greed is pretty disgusting to be honest.

Of course outfits are better designed, it is a no-brainer really. Outfits are a single piece that you can design as a whole seamless entity. Armor on the other hand has different parts that have to work together, it is much harder to design an armor than an outfit. Armor has limitations that outfits don’t have so you have more creative freedom when designing them.

Granted that some outfits could as well be armor, but the whole point of outfits is that they are supposed to be cooler than armor skins. Of course Anet wants ppl to buy them, and who would buy them if they weren’t cool?

If you are referring to the armor skins that they sell in gem shop (almost wrote Gem Stop here), would you rather buy 3 sets for 3 different weights or have one that fits all? What I think anet is doing (and what they should do) is that they release outfits when they have a vision that can’t be realized as an armor skin (due to the limitations mentioned earlier).

One thing Anet doesn’t do that often is to allow the same armor skin to be worn on any armour weight toon. They only have hats and stuff that work that way, I think they should make a whole set that works on any class and is not an outfit. Personally I wouldn’t buy gemstore skins that work on single armor weight only and cost as much as outfits.

My question would be why gem store armor sets should exist and why they are a good idea? Of course if you have the buck to buy armor set in 3 different weights then I suppose they are a good idea, but then again isn’t that greedy on Anet’s part?

TL:DR:
Anet shoud release gem store armor sets that can be worn on any class regardless of armor weight. Kinda like modular outfits.

Agemnon.4608:

Is mender’s dragonhunter meta and did it finally graduate from its bronzestomper role from season 1?

Mender + Symbol of Faith heals about 600 per second, and when traited, the symbol has almost permanent uptime. I fooled around with it some time ago.

Pic from lobby:

Sir Mad.1092:

Wait – what?

Do not take offence, but maybe you wanna check your skill tooltips (you don’t even need to do the math) before assuming AA is the thief’s highest damage output and base all your reasoning on that. ><

No, AA doesn’t have the highest DPS. And yes, the difference between a good thief and a bad one is abyssal, in therms of survivability, or, apparently, in therms of DPS.

Well that is what metabattle says (all hail metabattle). With quickness AA should be the highest dps. Without quicness there is just couple of Weakening Charges and AA.

Rotation Staff with Quickness
1. Dodge into Target to get Bounding Dodger and Staff Master

2. Fist Flurry or Staff Strike -> Staff Bash -> Punishing Strikes
? Repeat until Endurance is almost full

3. Repeat from step 1

And here is a no updraft Gorseval kill with pretty much just AA.

I feel that the next elite is either verry much tied to pets or not at all tied to pets. I mean that it is either beastmastery 2.0 or no pet at all, chancing profession mechanics completely. Personally I would like something melee orientated (mainly because melee=more damage in this game), maybe something like 300 radius whip. Shape shifting would be pretty awesome as well, It could be a profession skill that allows you to merge with your pet, combining pet and ranger damage output into one entity = basically what everyone wants.

I tried this build for lulz. It has nice healing, 3 condi clears (+clear on block), 22k hp, 2,5k armor and 10% + 10% + 7% damage reduction. It worked surprisingly well actually, could keep 2 players occupied for some time before dying and 1v1 wouldn’t end without interference. You can keep the point covered in Symbol of Faith all the time and heal yourself and allies with it.

Dunno if it makes any sense but it was pretty fun to play.

Just watched WoodenPotatoes guide to the new raid. He says that thief works rather nicely and played it himself as well. Altho he did say that once you got the raid down you can move to something else, but for learning encounters thief is nice since your highest damage is just AA and you can concentrate on the raid mechanics more. Thief also has reflect in AA and it seems that reflects are needed in the Slothasor fight.

Here is the link to the video when he mentions thiefs: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NVxxkhEEI1Y&feature=youtu.be&t=610

Of course ele has better reflects and damage so yeah… But I think ele is a tad bit harder to play than auto attacking thief. And as someone mentioned, there isn’t much difference between a subpar thief and a good thief since all you do is aa, this said, isn’t thief a safer choice in pugs?

Shadelang.3012:

The staff is a straight upgrade on greatsword. More utility. Better movement. More sustain. It lacks burst damage but that can be worked around. It also has NONE of the weaknesses of the longbow thought it is still outclassed in raw damage. I can’t speak for staff in condi builds however due to lack of experience with that playstyle.

I played trapper druid with a staff for a while. The build was nice for soloing HOT and exploring maps, I pretty much only used staff as a mobility stick but it did have some gimmicks such as a gap closer (melee traps). My favorite combo was to turn myself into a cruise missile, zap in the middle of mobs and melt them with traps and stuff. Another nice trick is that you can proc Ancient Seeds with Primal Echoes and Sigil of Geomancy when you swap to staff (free entangle on weapon swap sounds nice). Of course damage wise a staff in a condibuild is not optimal but fun never the less.

Haven’t tried staff with Sharpened Edges and Sigil of Earth but in theory it should work since staff hits super fast and the trait doesn’t have icd. Not optimal in PvE but might work in WvW? And by the way, how come Solar Beam doen’t have burning, that would make an interesting build.

foste.3098:

Agree with everything you said, but it is also true for pretty much all classes. You pick the spec no matter what especially in pvp because they are stronger that the core ones (this is most obvious in reaper scraper and chronomancer).
Instead of making elites open up new play styles to classes, which they do for some, they made them a strait up upgrade to most classes which is not what they said they wanted for them when they revealed the plan for HoT and character progress.

I think the reason for this is that the new specs were specially designed for group content (raids) so is group situations they excel. Altho this might have been the original goal, but it seems that some elites are better in every aspect of the game and don’t really have any tradeoffs.

But druid, to my experience, is not always best for PvE content, it feels like a waste of spec slot. Druid offers sustain and group support, so in harder content and group situations it is better than other specs by design. I don’t think druid can be nerfed enough or core ranger buffed that druid wouldn’t be the best for group play. Well of course it “can” be nerfed to the ground but lets not go there.

Druid is usually taken in place of beast mastery (PvE), the main reason I use beast mastery is Loud Whistle and Zephyr’s Speed for quickness. In a group this is not needed since you should have a mesmer to provide quickness. Overall in a group, druid offers much more than beast mastery, the little personal damage gain you get from beast mastery is far less than the group wide boost that druid provides.

So my bottom line is that for solo play I prefer core ranger.

I feel that the druid is one of the best designed elite specs in a sense that it truly gives ranger an alternative playstyle that is not necessarily better than core ranger.

Rangers are probably the only class I regularly see running without elite spec in PvE (me included). Other elites are pretty much better in all aspect of the game than the core variants.

As I understand it Anet’s original goal was to provide alternative playstyles that are not better than core variants but just different, I think druid is a success in this sense.

Altho it is just a matter of balancing not design but the other elite specs seem to do too many things and Anet seems reluctant to nerf them.

Next patch:

“Entering combat with a stowed pet no longer act as a pet swap”
“Rune of the trapper (6) now makes pet and payer both invisible but the traps will be visible to enemies”

problem solved

TreK.3794:

You’ve always set yourself as a company that listens to its customers.

Well ArenaNet, here’s your chance to prove that.

The current situation is a direct result of Anet listening to customers. In season 1 the forums were swarmed by ppl complaining that it is difficult to advance in league when you are matched against equally skilled players and constantly geting 50% winrate. Ppl also didn’t want to have less skilled players in their team (the other team had them too but hey, NOT IN MY TEAM)

So how did Anet solve this? By putting highly skilled players in one team and less skilled in the other one and matching them against each other. Now everyone within a team is equally skilled and it is easy to advance in league when you win every match. It might even out after a while but until then many ppl quit because there is no reason to play if you lose 80% of the time (but hey, we don’t want noobs in pvp anyway so this is not a problem, right?).

The current system is perfect and exactly what everyone wanted so what is the problem?

morrolan.9608:

MadVisions.4529:

???? this system is the competitive system we asked for, no idea why are ppl crying a river on forums about this particular addition.

‘We’ didn’t ask for this kitten show of a system. S1 with teh addition of the anti smurfing measure would have been far far preferable to this.

Isn’t this exactly what ppl were asking for? Ppl didn’t want to have 50/50 win ratio because it was hard to make progress, in other words ppl didn’t want fair matches. Of course everyone can’t have winrate above 50, so this is what you get. When matchmaking works you have 50% change to win and it is up to you to make that little difference to go against the odds.

The way this seem to work now is not verry welcoming to new players and even average players have problems. And ppl saying that the system will settle after a while, but how long is it going to take, a month? Because if pvp is disabled for a month because season ended and for the next month there is no reason to play if you are not a pro, that is a really nice way to lose players… Ppl lose interest in 2 months real easy especially now that some competing games are hitting the market.

reikken.4961:

if anyone has an AP requirement in their LFG, they are probably bad at the game, since they need everyone else in the party to be good to make up for it. So I never join them, except maybe to laugh at them and then leave party. Plus it’s only like 1% of LFG ads, so you don’t miss out on much.

My sentiments precisely. If the lfg says “All welcome”(mostly used in dungeons) it most likely means that the ppl in that party are so confident in their own skill that they can carry anyone through the run. Probably the most ridiculous thing I have seen is “lvl 2, experienced zerk only / gearcheck”, that is basically asking to be carried through lvl 2 fractal…

The best way to get daily med/high level fractals done with low AR is to make sure that the others can carry you. Was once carried by guildies, 30k agony ticks were so fun

On a little sidenote, I have noticed that the more swag somene has in pvp the more likely they are to be awful at pvp and just doing dailies. More swag = more time spent in pve = less time spent in pvp.

So I started playing guardian and this is my build at the moment, it is intended for PvE, dungeons and low-level fractals. The gear is from what I had lying around and some cheap stuff from tp. I don’t want to run full glass but also want relatively good damage, I also like to have some group support. I use mace/shield and greatsword and keep longbow ready for when I might need it.

I really like symbols, with Writ of Persistence and Altruistic Healing I have amazing self heals and some healing to allies and when soloing I can easily swap them to Retributive Armor and Force of Will for a more selfish build. I kind of like Valor but Zeal would be better for some extra damage.

So does my build make any sense to you and how should I improve it? I would like some marauder gear but it is hard to get since I don’t have armorsmith. And the runes are the cheapest I could find since I don’t really know where I want to go with them. Also as I’m a pretty casual player I would appreciate if you could come up with some relatively cheap and easily attainable ways to improve this build. Many thanks.

And style tips are also welcome

Aidan Savage.2078:

The problem is that EVERYTHING right now is built for a SINGLE chained skill, not 2 or more. Additionally, having a second chain skill just brutally kittens with builds becuase you’re taking a useful skill and turning it into some craptastic skill that might never see use anymore.

Finally, why? Why should this happen? This wouldnt make fights dynamic, it’d either make them needlessly complex, or utterly boring.

You are right everything is build like that but it doesn’t mean that (possible) future elite specs will be the same. There is no point to screw up existing working weapons and builds, like NONE, but that is not what I’m suggesting here.

I just wonder if I’m a terribly bad at conveying my message or if ppl are so afraid that Anet gets some ideas and screws up everything…

OtterPaws.2036:

Blue Hare.8612:

Healix.5819:

Skills are ordered by cooldown with the first 3 representing the main-hand and the last 2 representing the off-hand. Under the current design, an off hand auto attack simply doesn’t fit. They would have to do it similar to the thief where the choice of off-hand changes a main-hand skill. Even then, it’d really only make sense for dual-wielded weapons, where the auto attack would change to reflect striking with both weapons.

If they simply had a no-cooldown off-hand skill, keep in mind that the skill or possibly the entire build would be weakened because of that.

What I had in mind is that you would have the 5th skill act like the 1st skill. I don’t see how thief weapons have anything to do with this 0_O. And I don’t really get how anything would be weakened by having an auto attack, like would you say that thief or revenant auto attack is weak?

Say you have a thief with D/P and you change one of pistols skills into an auto attack. What you would do to compensate removing Headshot or Black Powder? Especially black power since you’ll be removing the only way to stealth without utilities and traits.

Yes… I don’t want to change any existing off hand weapons and I don’t see any point to do so. I just thought that it would be cool if with a new elite spec we would have off-hand weapon with an auto attack.

Healix.5819:

Skills are ordered by cooldown with the first 3 representing the main-hand and the last 2 representing the off-hand. Under the current design, an off hand auto attack simply doesn’t fit. They would have to do it similar to the thief where the choice of off-hand changes a main-hand skill. Even then, it’d really only make sense for dual-wielded weapons, where the auto attack would change to reflect striking with both weapons.

If they simply had a no-cooldown off-hand skill, keep in mind that the skill or possibly the entire build would be weakened because of that.

What I had in mind is that you would have the 5th skill act like the 1st skill. I don’t see how thief weapons have anything to do with this 0_O. And I don’t really get how anything would be weakened by having an auto attack, like would you say that thief or revenant auto attack is weak?

Healix.5819:

That’s what weapon swapping is for.

Engineer says hi but to be fair I get your point. But swap has a cooldown so having 2 auto attacks on one set would make fighting more dynamic?

Aidan Savage.2078:

An auto attack is just that, an automatic attack. That is definitely not the same as an attack chain.

Now, to be fair, there ARE weapons that dont have attack chains as well.

Yea, I really don’t know what to call it anymore. Ranger longbow auto doesn’t have a chain and you can put any skill on autocast but does it make them auto attacks?

I think this needs that pondering T-rex meme picture here…

Yargesh.4965:

It is an interesting idea. The offhand weapons are not currently set up to do what you want but with new weapons released with new Elites it could be implemented.

Exactly, the current weapons can’t do that but there shouldn’t be any reason why it couldn’t be done in the future with new weapons and elites.

Yargesh.4965:

every weapon skill can be put on auto attack, just push ctrl+right mouse. You mean attack chain I think.

Yes, I’m aware that you can put any skill on aoutocast but that is not really a real auto attack, so yeah a chain is what I had in mind. Let’s see if I can edit the topic.

Okay, when I get an interesting idea I just have to share it:

I was reading a thread about elite specializations and weapons, ppl don’t like some elites and weapons, some are disappointed that their class got an off-hand weapon not main-hand or 2-hand etc. Then I thought that what if some off-hand weapons had an auto attack as well. Like why not? It’s just a skill without a cooldown, no reason why there couldn’t be an off-hand auto attack.

It would create some interesting situations where you could choose how you want to attack and you could alternate between the two auto attacks depending what you want to do. You could have a defensive auto attack chain on one weapon and offensive chain on another, or main-hand could be a melee weapon and off-had ranged one.

Just a thought but I think it would be a rather interesting thing to have, what you think? Maybe future elite specs?

EDIT: Just to clarify, since ppl are getting the wrong idea. I’m not suggesting that Anet should change existing off-hand weapons. My idea is simply that it would be an interesting thing to see a (possible) future elite spec with an off-hand auto attack.

Dhaara.5817:

Is it worth to buy it ? I am one of the first players since i pre purchased the original game when it was not free to play, but somehow it does not seems fair to pay the double ammount for a game for the same content.

When it became free to play , we who purchased the game got actual exras, like more character slots etc.

When a free to player purchases the expansion he gets the exras too for that 45 €.

Then tell me please , why should we the first players pay the SAME 45 € for nothing more then the content, because We already had the extras with the purchase of the Original game ?

It does not seems fair to me.

I’m a new player and I have to say that I would not have bought HOT if I needed to buy the base game first with the total costs going to something like 100€, no way. Requiring the base game to play the expansion is a huge barrier of entry for new players, and means that there will be less ppl playing the expansion. (Not your point I know)

And as of now I wouldn’t mind if HOT became free and another expansion launched tomorrow, I have already gotten my money worth of hours in the game. It would just mean that there would be more ppl playing HOT content and I would be happy that the game gets more players. And new players are “content” for old players. In an mmo, as an existing player you get more out of the game when more ppl start playing the game.

And from a business standpoint, Anet already has your money and you hooked to the game and hardcore players will buy the expansion anyway. Altho it is always nice if the company gives some recognition to the existing playerbase when an expansion launches, exclusive skins or something. Also keeping the game running is not free (patches, servers, support etc), and when there is no subscription the only thing Anet can do is to push gem sales and sell expansion. So the amount of money you spent years ago went to maintaining the game and to develop new content.

That is my indirect answer and point of view to the question. And life is not always fair, no can do…

At first I didn’t really understand why ppl think that HOT is difficult, to me it was super easy, and I’m a casual player using exotics. Then I realized that my build is kinda ridiculous.

It is just that some classes are not as good at solo play than my ranger build, and ranger in general is an excellent solo profession. I have to be way more careful with my zerk DH than condi druid.

With my druid I can just run into a bunch of enemies and melt them with condis and not even care if I they chain cc me, with 25k health I don’t even need stunbreaks and I’ll just heal back up in no time, I can kite and drop traps at the same time so soloing champs is not an issue and even if I go down my pet will just rezz me.

DH is problematic because true shot roots you in place so you can’t really kite and deal damage at the same time. Now I found an interesting and durable DH build that I got to try out.

misterman.1530:

I find it odd that someone would pay Gems for a bridal package. What’s next, a pink convertible and a Malibu Dream house?

Oh, ppl do buy that stuff. The best in-game item that I have came across is in TF2 called “Something Special For Someone Special” a 100$ wedding ring you can gift to someone, It creates a game wide notification that everyone will see, It is awesome.

On the functionality part, I would like to be able to dive with my glider. Now if I want to lose altitude I have to turn off the glider and open it again later, sure it works but it feels weird. No idea how that could be implemented tho, might need another key, since forward and back are for lean techniques.

reikken.4961:

Blue Hare.8612:

Grace of the Land:
(8s/10s) x (5 × 3%) =12%

are you really hitting 5 skills every 10 seconds?
It does take time to use skills, jn addition to the form having a cooldown.
I don’t play druid, but an 80% uptime on grace of the land seems very unrealistic.

Only one skill is needed to get 5 stacks of Grace

Rejuvenating Tides:

Gather tidal force to rapidly heal nearby allies.
Healing Healing: 810 (0.35)
Number of Targets: 5
Pulses: 5
Radius: 240
Combo Combo Field: Water

Takes 2.75s to channel so not too long.

DoogySnowStalker.2069:

Jeez you are speaking so much out off your kitten , lol. Druid is able to buff group damage by a total of 40% damage through their group support: Glyph of Empowerment 10% damage bonus; Grace of the Land 15% damage boost to both direct and condi damage; Frost Spirit 10% damage boost; Spotter 150 group precision; and Sun Spirit to help increase sustained DPS for both direct and condi classes with the additional burning damage.

Actually it is around 25% boost to sustained group damage. Here is some calculations I just made:

Glyph of Empowerment + Verdant Etching:
(6s/16s) x 10 % + (8s/16s) x 3% = 5.25%

Spotter:
7% x (100 – crit damage) = 7% (with 200% crit)

Grace of the Land:
(8s/10s) x (5 × 3%) =12%

Frost Spirit:
0.75 × 10% = 7.5%

Total:
5.25 + 7 + 12 + 7.5 = 31.75%

This would be with a perfect rotation and you need to have full astral force every 10 seconds. Also if you have condition builds in party they don’t really benefit from spotter that much. So realistically you would get something around 25% boost. Feel free to correct me if I’m wrong, not really good with numbers.

And I can’t really see the benefit of using Sun Spirit. With condi spec the procs hit about 3000 dmg and has a icd of 8 seconds, so that is 3000/8s = 375 dps for a condibuild. Power builds benefit even less. Is Sun Spirit really this crappy or am’I missing something?

For a class mechanic the core guardian virtues are really boring and you don’t even use the active effects that often. Dragon hunter virtues are more active and actually do something. Sure they are stronger than core virtues but I would rather see a buff to core virtues to make them worth while. The only core virtue that is better is virtue of justice if you are playing a burn guardian.

AivenPrimus.9184:

Either double the Cooldown and/or reduce damage by 20% at least.

The problem with True Shot is that it is essential part of DH’s sustained dps, if you take it away DH’s damage output is rubbish (already is). I think the problem is not the dps but the fact that it is dealt in one instance. If the damage remained the same but was spread to multiple hits I think there would be less complaining. And I know DH has good damage in pvp but it is in one burst, in pve you need sustained dps to be effective.

Maybe if True Shot was changed to something like “make your 5 next attacs apply burning and deal 20% more damage” kind of a skill? Dunno about the numbers, just an idea.

AivenPrimus.9184:

I dont mind being wrecked by Thieves or lets say…scrappers, because those classes actually take a some skill to play and very few people know how.

To my experience dragon hunter is actually harder to play than scrapper. Scrapper in fact is pretty easy to play when you get the hang of it and learn some basic rotations. Scrappers give me more hard time than DH, they have perma-regen, perma-retaliation and almost perma-protection, they also have 3xwaterfield blast on 20 CD, a trait that resets cooldown on healing skills when you reach 25% HP and at the same time you go invulnerable from another trait. I had some fun in pvp lobby killing training dummies with retaliation only.

Okay maybe DH is easier and more simple but scrapper is way easier to play effectively than DH. Ppl say that DH is only a problem on lower divisions but I’m playing on those lower divisions and I’m not seeing that, I more often run into a good scrappers than a good DH. Scrapper is a super faceroll class, you jump in middle of a fight with retal, prot and regen and you don’t even care if you are taking damage, and if for some reason you mess up and get low you can just reset the fight with self regulating defenses and stealth gyro.

foste.3098:

But the main thing i dislike about dh is how one dimensional it is compared to other elite specs. It is geared to only do damage and nothing else (compare that to let’s say chronomancer who can be a decent bunker or a burst machine).

I don’t really agree on this one, if you haven’t noticed DH has quite bit of CC . And actually I don’t think their damage output is all that high if we look at sustained dps.

I like moba games and started playing GW2 sPvP when the game became F2P. I also found the PvE part enjoyable and bought HOT so I would say that sPvP does make money for anet and they maybe could uset it to draw more ppl to the game.

PvE and PvP are already quite separated but maybe they could be saparated even more. I think you should be able to make a character you can play only in PvP and that you could change the profession at will without creating a new character.

You would still be able to play normal PvE characters in PvP but having a dedicated PvP character allows you to play more classes. Now you are Limited By account slots and while in theory you can dedicate one slot solely for PvP it is still inconcenient to delete it and make a new one when you want to play another class.

This would work well with a new sPvP bussines model. All anet has to do is to make a PvP character slot that can change profession. F2P players could change between the core specs and you could rotate preview elite specs in a weekly basis and have an option to buy elite specs for PvP use only.

And while in this way F2P players could be compeitive, they wouldn’t have any fancy skins and to get skins they would have to play PvE or buy gems. And we all know that MOBA players can resist buying skins.

And I like how ppl agree that sPvP is pretty much a moba and that anet should embrace this more.

Shirlias.8104:

Blue Hare.8612:

Anyway, I don’t really get this thing that ppl want to play only one class in sPvP. Players should be competent to play at least 3 different professions.

Nope.

An spvp player could ( should? ) know all classes, to know cd, range, bugs, effects, casting time, animation, etc etc…. but can use just one single class.

The real problem is that casual players tries to use the most kitten class of the moment, switching from class to class every patch ( without know how to play it ).

An example are most of dragonhunters, and actually many necros,thieves,druids and scrappers.

ANET tries to call the casual community to and some pve players, but this is not worth as PVP, but just as farm, frustration… but less queue in exchange.

They could not fix soloq, cause queue… but at least fixing premades ( 1x class ) would be a great idea.

“Can” is a relative term, you(not “you” you, so not referring to you, take no offense) can play whatever you want, no one is stopping you. Of course you can have a signature class you enjoy playing and are the most comfortable with but I think you have to be able to play multiple professions so you can use the one that benefits your team the most. And the most effective way to learn to know other professions is to play them.

And when you mention casuals, I can see what you mean by ppl jumping to different profession when meta changes, I have seen it many times, but then again why should someone care what casuals do? Casuals shouldn’t get verry high on the ladder anyways.

My point is that competitive players have to be able to react to meta changes and play with the strongest team composition available. Meaning that competitive players don’t have the convenience of playing what they want but what they have to in order to win.

Browrain.7346:

Blue Hare.8612:

Browrain.7346:

Yeah this would be fun but I can’t imagine how long the queue times would be.

You should expand your thinking, there are some ways around that. If no other systems are implemented there would obviously be some popular classes that everyone wants to play and if you queue as such you would get long wait times. But when ppl realize this they start to queue as other professions to get lower queues. And of course you would like to play what you play best and tryhard in ranked but when you really get competitive you get a team and then queue times would not be a problem anymore. But you are absolutely right, this is could become a problem if nothing else is done.

In MMOs that have trinity, in some cases, you have an option to queue as a dps, tank and healer at the same time. So, you can choose to queue as a specific profession and get long queue times, or you can queue as everything and get lower queue times at the cost of not getting to choose what to play. And as you can already swap professions in sPvP this wouldn’t be a big change.

What I think would be ideal is that you could queue with multiple profession at once and when you get to a match you have to choose what to play (or the game chooses for you). This is what every other moba game does.

So people would have to play what they don’t want to play just to decrease q times. You should expand your thinking. This would create other problems.

Was not my intention to sound harsh or anything, maybe should use smileys more often to soften up my messages to convey my points better. Here is one:

Anyway, I don’t really get this thing that ppl want to play only one class in sPvP. Players should be competent to play at least 3 different professions. I play Dota quite often and in dota, if you want to be competitive you have to be comfortable with at least 20 different heroes and you have to choose what to play based on your team dynamics and to counter enemy team. Different games but still…

I do realize the inconvenience of having longer queue times when you want to play a specific class, but personally I value balanced games and diverse team compositions more.

Another thing about class stacking is PvP dailies I would like changed, now there is these “thief day” “necro day” things and we have teams with 3 thieves… “oh, it’s that day again”. Maybe make dailies different on each account and not have everyone doing the same dailies at the same time… just maybe.

Browrain.7346:

Yeah this would be fun but I can’t imagine how long the queue times would be.

You should expand your thinking, there are some ways around that. If no other systems are implemented there would obviously be some popular classes that everyone wants to play and if you queue as such you would get long wait times. But when ppl realize this they start to queue as other professions to get lower queues. And of course you would like to play what you play best and tryhard in ranked but when you really get competitive you get a team and then queue times would not be a problem anymore. But you are absolutely right, this is could become a problem if nothing else is done.

In MMOs that have trinity, in some cases, you have an option to queue as a dps, tank and healer at the same time. So, you can choose to queue as a specific profession and get long queue times, or you can queue as everything and get lower queue times at the cost of not getting to choose what to play. And as you can already swap professions in sPvP this wouldn’t be a big change.

What I think would be ideal is that you could queue with multiple profession at once and when you get to a match you have to choose what to play (or the game chooses for you). This is what every other moba game does.

reikken.4961:

Many very balanced games don’t allow class stacking

Indeed, I always wondered why GW2 lets you stack classes. sPvP is pretty much a MOBA and if we look at the other mobas out there, they all allow only 1 of each class on a team. To name a few: Dota, Awesomenauts, Smite and LoL. Dota goes as far as allowing only 1 of each hero in an entire match, but it has 100+ heroes so there is really no comparing to GW2. And I gotta say, Dota tournaments are way more entertaining to watch than GW2, you never know for sure what kind of a composition the teams will use and every match is somewhat different. And if we look at heroes in dota, one could argue that they are all OP but the game is balanced when you can’t stack them (Dota_commercial/end).

Balancing games is way easier when you can’t stack one class. It allows you to have extremely strong skills (damage and cc) when there is only one person in a match that can use it so you can chain them. Not really viable but a team of 5 chronomancers could use 10 gravity wells in a teamfight, and 5 thieves could instagib 2 enemies in a coordinated burst and teamfights would always be 5v3… scary stuff.

I think it would be nice to have 5 different classes in a team when playing ranked, would make things interesting, you know team dynamics and such. It could be like 1 bunker, 1 dps backline caster, 1 bruiser, 1 roamer to +1 and 1 healer. We could have actual roles and not have everyone doing the same thing.

And at least we would have guaranteed 5 professions that are meta , it is more than half <o_0>

I think they mentioned that matchmaking takes into account the matches played per arena, meaning that ranked and unranked have separate mmr. So those highly skilled players who only play ranked would have verry low mmr in unranked. Now that the season has ended and these players who can’t play ranked anymore are forced to play unranked, we get situations in which ambers and legendaries are playing together.

I’m more of a PvE player and didn’t really play ranked at all (couple of tiers in amber) and now whenever I play unranked sPvP I see ppl with the precursor wings.