Guild Wars 2

dekou.6012:

Here is a guide for soloable HPs. Combined with HPs from central Tyria, these should be more than enough to unlock your elite spec. Additionally, as far as I’ve seen people often help others with HPs, as long as they’re not too hard to reach.

The current cost is fine IMO.

honestly as a returning wvw player, the fact that i have to do anything to unlock something i just payed 50$ for is incredibly frustrating

last time i played the game, you didnt have to jump through hoops to unlock basic class functions, and now you have to grind and play around on some screwy pve map with jump pads and gliders

i’ll take a look at this link tho, maybe itll make the process suck less. i appreciate that people are trying to be helpful but holy geez i dont feel like doing any of this nonsense

notebene.3190:

Crimson Clouds.4853:

notebene.3190:

wok wok wokka … wok
wok wok wok wokka … wok

:|

I know that noise… what does it come from?

I think it’s some sort of robot pet? Maybe something that came from the Donkey Kong room?

the adventure box banana mini makes sounds that could be described that way

i hope my bear gets a wizard hat and casts spells when i cast spells

if im magic so is my bear

my excitement for this specialization dropped to absolute zero when i got a look at what its actually going to do. the idea of a heavily armored knight fighting dragons with a longbow sounded so awesome, too.

seriously though, traps. why.

Remove PvE from requirement for world completion. It’s unfair to WvW players.

I get that it was a bug. What needs to be understood though is that this skill has functioned this way for two bloody years, and many of us have gotten used to playing with it this way. This bug fix took too long, plain and simple. It should have been fixed before the players grew comfortable with it, or just left alone because it’s honestly not that big of a deal. How many of us are actually running DS focused builds that fully took advantage of this? Does the gameplay balance achieved from this change outweigh the negative impact that it has on players who now have to un-learn a gameplay pattern that they’re used to?

I think we deserve a mulligan on this one. This bug being fixed makes the game better for nobody, and worse for a very select few running an already-unpopular build.

I’ve been running the same non-standard frontline DS build since launch, and it has treated me well. I chose most of this stuff with a couple factors in mind though — I am a solo player. I zerg with PuGs, and I don’t intent to get overly coordinated; I can’t rely on others help since I am not coordinating with them, and I need to make sure I can keep myself alive and provide my own swiftness; I want bags; I want to be the first one in and the last one to die if things go wrong.

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fRAQNBHhZakjmab7pxmG+bTgMUSFCRHAFwBQ9R0EvKA-TVCBwA5U/Zg9HLV+pw8HgTBAFlgp0Hw4BAE4IAAA-w

With fury, you’ll have 101% crit chance in DS mode, which is how you’ll spend most of your time. You also have 100% swiftness uptime, and never have to rely on others to provide it (important if solo, unimportant otherwise).

A DS necro with locusts, reaper’s precision, and spectral armor active is stupid hard to kill, and can survive diving headfirst as well as a warrior or guardian. Disorganized groups are extremely easy to break up with a well of corruption, and DS 5+4.

I’m not gonna sit here and tell you it’s the most effective or efficient thing ever, because there are better things you could be doing if you plan on grouping up and coordinating (and, quite frankly, you should be talking to your guild about what they need in the group if this is what you’re doing), but I will say that this setup is very self-sufficient in chaotic PuG battles. It’ll keep you alive, keep you mobile, put out fun amounts of damage, supply some utility for your friendlies, and get lots of bags.

If you’re not a solo player, this stuff changes a bit, but the core idea is the same and it is still fun if you want to frontline with something a little different than the usual heavy armor hammer train shouting at everything.

hey guys the loot bag shoots back, now, and it actually hurts. better moan about it on the forums.

guy takes melee glass cannon into chaotic eotm blob. guy gets rekt. guy blames game balance.

seriously tho. why tonics. why not just make these pre-set styles attached to the sets into ‘outfits’ like the pirate/chef/etc so they could at least be fully functional and somewhat dye-able. this whole thing is asinine.

I like the new t1 minor in death magic. I’m interested to see how much armor it gives, though I’m expecting it to be on par with Elementalist’s t1 earth minor at 120. That would be fine with me.

Path of corruption looks good. It’s not exactly the most interesting thing ever, but a double boon corruption in a 15s CD is pretty nice. I’d liked to have seen it on Doom instead, since that’s easier to land, but this definitely fits well on a chasing skill, and I can see why they did it. Plus it’s unblockable, so there’s the chance of corrupting aegis into burn, which should be cool for condi builds.

Renewing blast is irrelevant – there’s no way I’m ever NOT taking +50% crit chance. May as well try to fill a different niche, I guess, even if it is as weird as life blast heal.

I stopped playing because the vast majority of the WvW players on my server ran off during S1, and it became a boring as hell circle cap karma train with no action. I didn’t feel like grinding boring pve crap for gold, or paying 20$ to transfer so I just turned my attention to other games. I still keep an eye on the ongoing development in the event that Anet does something to revitalize my interest in the game, and occasionally poke in for the odd post or log in to see if there is by some great chance something fun going on in EBG.

It had nothing to do with arenanet not pumping out announcements for everything they do like twitter.

Eh… I use a DS build, and I’d like to use this, but I think 30 in Death Magic would be sacrificing too much for one trait. If they overhaul Death Magic to not try to force minion playstyles through the minor traits, maybe it’ll be worth trying. There are some decent major traits to be had there, but even so, Curses is so hard to compete with for 20-30 points, Death Magic’s going to need a lot of upgrades to look attractive, even to DS builds.

This map has more choke points than the Denver Broncos.

No thanks, I’ll just stick to EBG for my PUG battles.

It’s not a nerf, it’s a bug fix. Skill balance is completely separate from exploitative bugs, you nimrods. Life leech working on doors was deemed as unintended functionality long ago.

ArmageddonAsh.6430:

Very true, Though i would take the Life Force regen and high damage over a poor heal, though i guess 2k isnt to bad, should be better though and the damage is like less than a quarter of that of Ghastly Claws

In what world do you live in where axe 2 hits 4x harder than dagger 2?

Soul Reaping has some of the toughest trait choices already. It’s not like this trait has nothing good competing for the slot, and you can just toss it into your spec without giving anything up. There are many excellent T1 and T2 traits that benefit DS builds greatly that this one has to compete with.

If you want to run around in DS longer, this will allow that, but it does have a price tag. There’s no point in shoving it further up the trait line to make it harder to choose when it’s already not an easy choice.

Personally, I love this trait, and I’ve been using it since even before the buff from 25% to 50% because every second counts when you dive into a group of 30 enemies. Does it suck to not be able to get the 20% CDR on Spectral Armor, or the +50% fear duration, or the 15% CDR on DS skills? You bet. That’s the tradeoff.

Vital Persistence is balanced, Soul Reaping is in great shape. They’ve been working at this for a year now, and it shows.

WvW accounts for like 3% of the total map probably. What’s less fair: that pve players have to go into wvw for 3%, or that wvw players have to go into pve country for 97%?

So many clamps on this skill. ICD on passive. ICD on active. Total proc limit on active. Individual proc limit on passive. Huge cast time, requires a target.

I can’t help but think they’re purposely being extremely conservative/cautious with this because of how easy necro is to throw into wtf-mode. I feel like we’re going to see a lot of these restrictions eased up once it sees some use/feedback and they can confirm that it’s not going to turn necro into the incredible hulk.

one of my math teachers in high school used to have a piece of paper taped to the wall that read “if needed, bang head here” with a plain blank circle below it. some moments still take me back to that time. this is one of them.

i don’t know how else to respond to this.

Axe 3 is a good skill. Aoe cripple, boon removal, and retaliation from one skill isn’t a bad deal at all. Adding a blast finisher wouldn’t help the axes problem – it lacks identity. It doesn’t really promote any specific playstyle that’s unique to the necromancer. Axe 3 sort of promotes a “run in melee range against a bunch of enemies and tank stuff with your face” playstyle, but 1 & 2 don’t do much to support this idea.

Axe 1 and 2 are uninteresting to say the least. The life force and damage are alright, but it would be nice if the skill had more play to it. It just feels so lifeless, you use it when you’re in range and that’s that. It doesn’t add anything special to the axe other than just a burst of damage. I think adding more emphasis to a unique playstyle/niche would help make the weapon more appreciated, and axe 2 is a good place to look.

For the autoattack, I agree that an auto attack chain would open up a lot of opportunities if they’re still not willing to give it cleave.

I don’t use tomes because the cast times are brutal. 3/4s x3, 2s, 4.25s. The spells are powerful, but it takes so long to do anything. It just feels clunky. I get it, the aoe full heal is powerful, but it’s an elite — it’s supposed to be powerful without having some huge drawback. 4.25s channel time is a pretty freaking big drawback, especially when you have to stand still to do it. Combat in this game is so mobile, and tomes root us in place for massive periods of time. Whenever I tried using my healing tome 5, I found that the guys I was trying to heal done instinctively ran the hell away rather than staying in the fight to die. When I try to use the aoe daze, the fight has already shifted away from me and there’s few enemies nearby.

If I could move while using the tome’s powerful skills, I’d consider taking it.

I’ll believe that when I see it. Every class having access to every weapon sounds like a balance nightmare.

Same problem, had green eyes, now I have black eyes. I’m not 100% sure her eyes are spring, but it looks close to the other screens posted.

http://i.imgur.com/83TyiA5.jpg

If they named a class “shadow knight”, i would immediately uninstall the game and start wearing seasonal cardigan sweaters.

Daendur.2357:

They must change the anti stealth mechanic.
Giving abilities to apply “revealed” isn’t the right way to counter it.
They must introduce a new buff “visible”: the thief is still stealthed but he is visible.
No invisibility but the thief can use his skills/traits.

This is fair. Revealed doesn’t only reveal the thief, it also disables some of their skills, and shuts out a lot of their traits (specifically shadow arts). Revealed should remain a debuff that the thief has to personally manage as part of his class, not a negative affect that can be afflicted upon him.

Guardians can’t be hit with a skill that prevents them from generating boons, elementalists cant be hit with something that stops them from swapping attunements, warriors cant be hit with something that drains their adrenaline or blocks adrenaline generation, and thief shouldn’t have his class mechanics completely disabled by an outside effect either.

I understand that they need to get the ball rolling somewhere, and sic em may act as an alright temporary solution, but in the long term I hope they work out something more fair to both the thief and his opponent.

I use something similar in wvw (same trait setup), though I just use three venom utilities and accept that I’m probably toast if I get caught out. Spider venom on unload is just excellent, skale venom is almost also very good though I can understand grabbing the shadowstep instead given the spvp setting. I don’t understand why take ice drake venom over devourer venom, though, now that immobilize stacks. 4 seconds of chill compared to 6 seconds of immobilize seems like an easy choice.

I don’t know about any venom build revolving around p/p, but I use a SB venomshare build in WvW, with p/p as the secondary set. I don’t switch to it a whole lot, but there definitely is a reason to using p/p with venoms.

Venoms work well with pistols in that unload will quickly proc every hit of a venom from a pretty safe range. Other weapon setups can’t pump out each venom strike as quickly or reliably. If you’re already using SB to spread the venoms around, it’s useful to have p/p to have a way to quickly push them all onto one guy if you need to (while staying at range), since SB can’t do this.

I think asura have access to grey eyes. I don’t think it’s a matter of them not remembering to put it in, but rather that they chose not to include it for some races.

DigitalKirin.9714:

“Let me see that character sheet…”

Roll the dice to see if I’m getting drunk!

Healing support guardian problems:

• Expensive to trait shield and mace, due to them sharing the T2 major slot in the same trait line. Pushing one down to T1 major would be fantastic.

• Cast time on Mace 2 is pretty long, and cumbersome to use.

• Shield 5 healing power scaling is questionably low.

• Staff 2 still randomly gets stuck in objects/terrain, and doesn’t reset unless the caster manually detonates it, triggering its longer CD.

lujate.5432:

Skills prioritizing party members seems fair, as long as players not in party prioritize other solo players.

Very much this.

I like playing solo. I’ve played in groups, I’ve played on voice chat, I’ve done coordinated stuff. I don’t like it. I don’t take the game that seriously. I don’t want to sit and talk to 20 other people, or group up with some guys I don’t know, I’m not interested in making friends or getting to know anyone, I don’t want to talk, and I definitely don’t like being in guilds. Yes, I’ve tried it, no I didn’t like it. I just want to keep to myself and play the game.

There are other people like me.

That said, I am a team player and I play a pure support / healing +75% boon shout guardian. I think if the grouped players are already apparently keeping their boons to themselves, there’s no reason that my skills should ever prioritize them over the other solo players who aren’t getting anything. (Quite frankly, that’s how boon distribution should work in the first place — prioritize the guys who don’t already have it.) You’re supporting your own group, and that’s fine, but there are going to be others playing that need buffs too, and I don’t need well-off players leeching my power when other guys don’t have anyone helping them.

You don’t get to choose the people that need your help.

I think one step to take for making the shield more attractive is to drop the shield trait to T1. They realized that warriors didn’t like having to go 20 points in just for a shield CD, and guardians don’t either. Whether or not it’s particularly effective, it’s plainly obvious that mace+shield was meant to be the guardian’s heal/support dual setup. Making the traits for these weapons compete for a trait slot is an odd choice. It would make a clear playstyle more accessible.

Shield 4 I don’t have much comment on. For WvW, the protection duration / up-time is excellent. It’s less potent in spvp though, so I can see why you might want more from it there. Shield 5, I agree, the CD feels too long at its current power level. Otherwise, at its current CD I think it could at least stand a healing power coefficient increase. An 0.2 ratio is abysmal, and makes this weapon extremely unattractive to the supportive healing/boon playstyle it wants to be used by.

Guardian (and mesmer) is a great platform for turning martial weapons into magic weapons. Longbow would be a cool candidate, especially since the “bow of justice” / “light arrow” theme is already in the ether, as others have noted, as a spirit weapon. It’s a great fit for the theme, and many guardian players are wanting more ranged options. If they decide to give classes more weapon options, I hope this is at the top of the list for guard.

Warrior’s defensive power comes from having high base stats and powerful regen that costs them the ability to burst heal. Guardian’s defensive power comes from defensive boons, multiple sources of HP regeneration, and access to burst healing (most easily gotten through 15 points in honor). Due to guard requiring more investment to be sturdy, he’s not going to be as tough right out the starting gate like warrior is since the warrior’s defense all comes naturally.

Rock dog, and skelk.

One of the more popular combinations is T2 chest, and T3 legs. They’re very good for showing tattoos, especially if you have the cool Eir style. I use those, with T1 gloves, boots, and shoulders. These three pieces alone can make most sets look distinctly norn due to animal fur and the nordic looking patterns on the bulky squared off armor plates. If you’re looking to save a clashing set, and try to give it a strong norn flair that overpowers other clashing styles, those are worth trying out.

GW2 is the only non-subscription MMO I have every played in my life where players are complaining that they have to pay for cosmetics. Selling these things is the entire reason cash shops exist, and the entire reason a non-subscription game can afford to pump out mini updates every two weeks. It’s a very fair business model that even gives non-paying customers an option to get paid content. No other MMO has a payment model anywhere near as generous as GW2. Suddenly, adding the option to get new hairstyles for 3$ or maybe an hour of frostgorge farming makes them evil and greedy? I honestly don’t even know how to respond to this, you people are absolutely astounding.

The new style OP is using looks exactly like the hairstyle of Eric’s trampy older sister Laurie on that 70’s show. I’ll never be able to take it seriously. >_>

CrossFire.8037:

If you’re a Sylvari and care about clipping, don’t purchase the new long hairstyle.

Every new human female style clips into the Medium T3 top. I can’t imagine these will be very popular among thieves (especially), given how extremely popular that particular piece is for them.

I don’t buy the argument against rifle for ranger that they’re supposed to be nature-centric, and that somehow invalidates rifle thematically. This view of the profession narrows it down far too much and shoves them into a two dimensional box. There’s more to the classes than just a single theme. Guardians are sturdy frontline protectors/soldiers, but they’re also holy magic users; Engineers are clever machinists, but also alchemists; mesmer is a trickster mage, but also a duelist. Just the same, rangers aren’t only the nature magic class, they’re also the hunter and trapper class. Rifle is a common hunting weapon, it can be fit properly into the ranger’s theme.

Hellmood.2097:

Ranger:
Staff as a melee weapon for hitting stuff. It should be visceral, martial-arts style.

Quarterstaff rogue would be an equally good playstyle for ranger or thief. Both have emphasis on agile melee combat centered around evades and mobility. Either would be cool.

Personally, I’d like to see a pure magic/caster style for a staff ranger, and melee staff thief. The nature magic is a cool theme, and it would be interesting to see it explored more with dedicated weapons instead of only in the spirit utilities.

munkaybiznaz.8067:

I love these new hairstyles but honestly I was hoping for more curly options. Maybe next time.

Same here. To be completely blunt about it, there are no natural looking hairstyles for black woman characters (humans anyway, there’s a couple for norn women that work well). I’m not genuinely bothered by it, race bias in video game character creation isn’t exactly rare. Just one hair style with some curl or frizz would be appreciated though.

At any rate, the new styles look quite nice. More character creation variety is always welcome.

I play a LB/GS ranger, so I don’t have much to say outside of this scope. There’s a couple things that bug me about my setup, mostly longbow-related things, but I don’t have any major hang-ups.

• Opening Strike Refresh is too long — Opening strike takes ages to refresh untraited. I’d like to see the refresh time reduced, or made instant upon exiting combat.

• Moment of Clarity & Point Blank Shot — This trait only fully benefits GS and SB. Since GS and LB are a sensible enough weapon setup for power builds, it would be nice to have this trait benefit LB as well. Perhaps increase knockback effects with this trait as well, which would be great for LB and make it a more attractive choice for GS as well since counterattack also has a knockback. I’d like to see more power builds that actually put 25 into skirmishing instead of leaving it at 25.

• Rapid Fire Lacks Purpose — This skill is fun to use, but unless you’re at super close range it’s not really worth using over normal autoattacks. It doesn’t need a supercharge in dps (just adding more raw damage is the boring/lazy way to make the weapon better, where new functionality could help emphasize its own unique purpose), but perhaps give it an extra effect on the final shot as a pay-off to using it similar to how HB works. It takes a while to channel this entire skill, and it’d be great to be rewarded more for finishing it. A condition on the enemy (immobilize would be cool, and make it a kindof control weapon, similar to engineer shotgun), a boon for the ranger, etc, something that makes it worthwhile to use this skill in more situations other than “I’m too close for my normal autoattacks to be worth using”, we already have point blank shot for that situation.
  Honestly, if we weren’t getting stealth reveal from sic em, I think this would have been a cool place to have it, since it’s already pretty useful for tracking thieves/mesmers when you know they’re going to stealth.

It doesn’t really matter how it affects the game. Dailies are designed to keep concurrency up, not help any specific players. They make it so that instead of doing a whole lot each day, and getting bored with the game quicker, you’re only allowed to do a little bit each day to keep you playing longer. They don’t care if you only play 10-20 minutes, so long as you log in it’s giving them something to show the guys that write their checks and fund them. Time gating unique content through bite sized daily activity is one of the most fundamental ways designers keep players around longer, you can complain about it until the cows come how but it won’t go anywhere.

Character model: Human Female

Equipment: Magitech Leggings (Gemshop item)

As others have noted, this piece has clipping issues on several models. For the default body shape, and the 2nd and 3rd options on the second row, it fits well. On other body shapes, it clips into one or both of the legs. It’s far worse on some models than others.

I don’t know about those numbers, but condi duration food is too bloody strong. That includes the -duration food as well.

I have leveled 2 rangers, 2 guards, 3 necros, 2 mesmers, 1 warrior, 1 engineer, 1 thief, and no elementalist. The only class I don’t like is elementalist. I’ll get around to leveling it one of these days…

Wolfield.9812:

Run stability. Confusion thief now useless. Enjoy the easy kill.

He’s an engineer, which has unreliable stability access.

Good god, man, try a different class! o_o

Gobhoblin.7582:

Here is my swashbuckling thief, after watching waaay too many Errol Flynn movies.

Superior studded shoulders
T1 chest
Superior studded gloves
HoM legs
T3 boots

I love this. Great setup!

Champ routes have made the game better for beginners in Queensdale. I always see people complaining that zones are empty, and leveling is a lonely process. Well, in Queensdale it’s not. There are people talking to each other, communicating objectives, teaching others about the game, and making the leveling process for people in this zone much more social and welcoming.

Arenanet was very aware of what giving mobs these kinds of rewards would create. They’re not that oblivious, they’ve been working with MMO gamers for years and they know what their play patterns are like. Saying that they never meant for these rewards to be farmed, or that they were supposed to be a treat for doing something that wouldn’t happen often is absolute nonsense. They never said anything of the sort, that’s just what you think. Arenanet did not add this mechanic to the game on a whim, throw some darts at a board and say “okay, we’ll put this in, add some numbers and just ship it immediately.” The value and accessibility of anything of value that is added to the game when they’ve already got a good read on the economy is going to be carefully considered and tuned. At the beginning of the scarlet event, there was a screenshot that surfaced where a player asked an arenanet employee if they were aware of how much gold they were adding into circulation, and his answer was a simple “yes”. People thought that farm was insane, yet it was hardly touched and remained a fantastic gold farm.

This is really just a case of “I don’t like how those people are playing, please make them stop.”

They don’t want to stomp out farming like you people seem to think, they just want better control of the gains from it.