Guild Wars 2

I also vote for the return of the armor repair penalty and removal of WP costs.

And while we’re at it, with mounts coming, I’d say they should remove about 90% of the WPs in the game. Make the world livelier by having people running around and/or make more use of Asura Gates instead of Waypoints.
Put up some story that Balthazar damages whatever WPs use to work and now there’s not enough energy to build new ones and a bunch just went dead, w/e.

One of the cool things about other (older) MMOs I used to play was the sense of danger and adventure going forward somewhere I knew it’d be hard to return to if I die.

The same can applies to armor repair, make the cost like 10s or 20s per damage piece. That’s a huge gold sink beneficial to the game’s economy, makes players consider their actions more carefully, you’d stop seeing those people AFKing in the middle of nowhere getting ressed and killed over and over again, so it’d also help make players work towards improving themselves than just zerging bosses.
Currently dailies give 2g which is quite a lot so a player can die like 10~20 times per day without a loss, but make it scalable with their level (or gear) of course.

And oh, do remove the armor damage from WvW, just like PvP, or come up with a new mechanic to punish WvW death in a way not to make zergs shy from engaging and dying.

Can you guys reduce the CD of Daggerstorm by like… half?

Reasoning: Basilisk Venom is regularly the superior choice in a lot of scenarios, it has support, strong 1v1 potential and a great bar breaker. And it has a 40 CD untraited.
Meanwhile, Daggerstorm used to have this “free CC immunity and escape AoE button for 8 secs” effect but that’s been reduced to half, reducing one of it’s great uses which was surviving and moving away/reflecting projectiles.
So it’s only fair we get to use it twice as much right? The damage is AoE and not really worth it on 1v1s, it’s a good and strong (and relatively safe) AoE which Thief really lacks.

And lastly but not least, because it’s freaking cool to spin throwing daggers and I’d like to spam it whenever it’s off CD.

Firebrand: I think you guys are repeating the same Elite Tome mistakes but by a smaller degree again.
Elite Tome were cool, had great abilities, but I think the fact it had limited duration (20 secs, 30 secs traited with skills with CDs longer than this) and on a 180 sec CD itself greatly limited it’s fun factor.

Why not remove this pages mechanic and make it similar to Elementalist’s attunements or Engineer’s kits? That would make it much fun to play.

Also, can you consider adding damage to the tome skills instead of just burning? Just because it’s magic doesn’t mean it needs to be about condition damage, think of the power builds…

• Remove gathering tools equip area and move them to item instead, maybe adding an icon on the “currently in use” one, making it easier to share gathering tools between characters via the shared inventory slot, and also auto-using the “next tool” when the current one runs out so it’s less hassle to update them when you don’t have the infinite ones.

• Normalize the food/utilities duration, 30 min is fine, 1h is also fine, but 15/45 min is not. This makes keeping track and reapplying buffs such a pain. Also, update the Birthday Blaster cake to 30 min, it’s nice that it’s a free generic food buff but the 10 min duration seems to be there simply to make players annoyed.

• Option to save outfits/gear dyes combinations.

• When opening the crafting window, make all categories collapsed by default since it’s annoying to browse when you have more than one window height line of recipes. And maybe also add a button to collapse/open all.

• Move all those map-specific unlocks (keys) to wallet or something equivalent please…

• When equipping rings or even 1h weapons, give it a small timer that when two items are equipped it moves to the next slot. For example if I double-click to equip a ring, it equips on the 1st slot, if I double-click another ring it equips on the 2nd slot. This would make changing gears much easier.

• Get rid of repair, pretty please? It had a point when there was a cost to it but now it’s just a hassle and an attempt limit on hard instanced achievements.

• Map Timers and maybe even Boss Timers? They’re already present in various other sites but if they were present in-game would be better.

Wow, someone suggested it was the temperature and I tried changing the thermal paste and voila, it worked… this same place yesterday I was getting about 25 fps and now it’s back to playable again!

Hi, I switched my GPU from Radeon HD 7950 that I’ve been using since the game’s launch for a GeForce GTX 970 about 6 months ago and my FPS seems even lower than before, hitting the single digits during fights with lots of people using skills.

If I recall correctly, during launch I averaged 50~60 fps on highly populated areas and 150+ fps on desolated areas.
Now I’m averaging 25 fps on cities, 7~15 fps on populated events and I can’t even break 50 fps anywhere.

I tried changing the graphic settings but the changes seems minimal, 15 fps MAX from (almost) highest settings to lowest.
I’ve also changed my display from 1080p to 4k a month ago, but this doesn’t seem to affect the performance as much as I’d expect, 1~2 fps on cities and events pretty much the same.

When I checked it with a resource monitor, I found it weird that even though I was having these low fps the CPU/GPU load weren’t as high as they should, CPU was about 60% and GPU about 40% load during the event in the attached image.

I’ve read around and it seems there are a few people with this issue and they all say it’s a Win10 + Nvidia Drivers issue, but does anyone know of a workaround or fix? Or confirmation of this issue?
It’s kinda unplayable at the moment.

Brimstar.9036:

bla bla bla Sword

Agreed for the most part, but Sword’s auto attack is strong and it synergizes well with VoJ. That doesn’t compensate for the other skills being so weak though. The main issue of the Sword though is the… MACE.

Brimstar.9036:

bla bla bla Mace

Unreasonable changes here, the mace is in a very good spot, it’s a defensive weapon but still is way TOO strong. The auto attack may be slow, but it HEALS you. You can maintain almost 100% uptime of Symbol traited, and it’s DpS is just too much if you get someone to stand still the entire time (you get a lot of boons/damage from symbol traits), which isn’t rare in PvE.

Brimstar.9036:

bla bla bla Staff

People still use it for WvW. It’s an overall balanced weapon, weaker in the damage side, but the weapon might be suffering the same as Sword, it’s being overshadowed by the Longbow.
Better range, damage, slower symbol, same control if not better. It can’t heal, but it’s very situational (Empower + AH is almost another heal every 16~20 secs) and Orb of Light kinda sucks to aim, it should be like LB’s #3 for better support.

I’m also in favor of buffing/changing the Sword, I like the look/style of it (Sword n Shield Guardian!) but I can’t really find any decent reasons to pick it over Mace (I’m not comparing 1H with 2H).

I like the “being a Thief” idea so I PvE’ed one to 80.
I enjoy melee in GW2, so my weapons of choice are Sword/Dagger nd Dagger/Dagger, although I carry a Shortbow to move around in style.

So, the point of this thread is… I can’t Thief. It’s cool and all, but I just… can’t or don’t feel I’m playing as it should be.

I play a Guardian/Elementalist (equal hours) and Mesmer mainly. With those I feel like I’m being active, actually doing something (I’m not complaining about the support of the Thief profession). With the Thief, however, it feels I’m not doing enough damage (I don’t see the bursts of damage as I do with my other characters) and I also feel I spend too much time downed or dead (probably my main issue).

Before anyone says about the “full zerker meta”, here is my build:
Exotic Berserker Armor, Runes of the Pack
Ascended Berserker + Valkyrie Trinkets
Exotic Soldier + Valkyrie Gem Backpack
Ascended Soldier Weapons

Yeah it’s not much defense, but I got a little bit of def and health so I don’t get insta-downed while still trying to maintain high damage.

As for Traits, I enjoy Deadly Arts and Trickery, and as 3rd I reluctantly pick Critical Strikes because it’s a must for damage, but I really like Shadow Arts for being… shadowy and stuff.

So, here’s the issue, I’m going here and there doing PvE stuff (and I push stuff hard, like mobbing – I love mobbing) and comes 3 mobs, 1 hit each and I’m almost dead.
I’m fighting a boss, his back is annoying to get (my aggro is tank-level on World Bosses and champion events), I can’t backstab only frontstab, sometimes I get on a mob’s back, he farts and I’m down “wtf was that?”

Comparing to, say, Guardian, I can take a few hits here and there while I set down all the skills, symbols, traps, AoE.
Same for Elementalist, a bit less tanky but it’s still manageable.
With Thief though, there’s no time, the few hits here and there is enough to down me.

Without Daredevil I also have only two dodges like any other profession, and I have no Vigor. I manage around with Withdraw and Death Blossom, but it’s trickier due to CD and the startup animation.

In the end, I feel it’s too much effort for less/almost equal performance of other professions and I end up logging my other characters. But I keep thinking “man thieves are so cool” and I’ve been repeating this for a while.

So, how do you PvE?

Am I doing something wrong, or is this really the state of the profession? I assume I’m not skilled with the Thief’s playstyle but I don’t see if I were to practice for godlike skills that it would be any better, hence the question.

Core Guardian: Feels like deals lower damage than other professions, average to below support depending on your traits/gear.
Probably the best damage/support you can get is Mace/Shield with Zeal/Honor and anything else.

Dragonhunter: Huge damage improvement, most of it thanks to the traps (low CD and great damage) and a better ranged weapon than Scepter, giving the Dragonhunter a solid all around build.
Besides that, weapon damage didn’t change much, your best DpS might still be Zeal + Mace or Radiance + Sword.

The huge downside of the Dragonhunter in my opinion is that in exchange of the increase in damage you lose a lot in support. Your utilities will be filled mostly with traps, two which grant no support at all, and you’ll probably be keeping Empowering Might and maybe Light’s Judgement and Feel My Wrath.

Everything else is sorta… selfish. If you use a Mace, it’s not that bad, but compared to what other Elite specializations do to their professions, it makes the Dragonhunter feels lacking.
As an example, Chronomancer gives a nice damage increase for Mesmers while also granting a whole lot of (unique) support. Tempest gives up damage slightly (arguably balanced for the overloads) but the support, which was already great for Elementalists, gets insanely better.

However, GW2 is designed in such a way (or so it seems) that you shouldn’t worry about maxing out everything you do, you should be able to play whatever you want, with the build you want (to some extent), and still be successful in whatever you want to do.
So I’d suggest playing with whatever profession you enjoy playing.

Just looking for honesty on whether the Guardian really is completely useless or just a harder class that you have to try harder with in order to get results. If it’s just a matter of putting more effort into the class I don’t particularly see an issue.

It’s not an issue of working harder, it’s an issue of profession limitation.
You can work hard and be an excellent player, never get hits, dealing the max DpS your profession/build can get, but you’re still limited to the builds and skills available to your profession.
What people seem to complain is that Guardian/Dragonhunter feels very lacking compared to other Elites (and I agree), but it’s not game breaking at all.

Although I don’t really believe anything posted here will be read by any ANet staff, still, here’s my small contribution:

How can I make this content better?

Increase the Fireball’s size to the original size. Maybe even bigger.

How have you seen this particular problem solved in other games?

They have a client option to reduce visuals of (important!) other players.

How do you think this particular element or aspect of the game could be improved?

Increase the size(s) of the spell(s). Reduce the flashy on hit visuals because that’s what makes it impossible to see the target, not the projectile on it’s way to the target. Or maybe only play visual on hit effects for your own skills, or leave a client option for it.
Or reduce the on hit effect overall to something that don’t affect the monster, for example there’s no reason to make the monster flash whenever he’kitten by any skill, but play with effects around it.

See WoW, although it’s been ages since I haven’t played, I remember being able to see monsters clearly even on a 25m raid. You can still see on hit effects, but none (almost all) changed or made the monster “flash”.

Watch, at the 35 sec mark, how the mob doesn’t flash at all. Although players are firing pellets just like the new Fireball, that’s NOT why you can see the mob clearly. It’s because of the on hit effects.

Tell us why you answered that way

This is a 3D MMO RPG, graphics are a huge part of it and GW2’s graphics, from the technical standpoint, are simply stunning.

For me, Fireballs could be bigger, Meteor Showers could have a client only animation of my character yelling something of impact while showing a quick face flash animation and each meteor could also explode and unicorns fly out of it. I’d use it every time.

You see, there are players who are concerned with how good, nice and flashy graphics we see when we play. I used to enjoy watching my Elementalist throwing those amazing Fireballs on mobs. I’d even throw some Fireballs while running around simply because they looked awesome.

Now every time I see a Fireball, I cringe. I think “ugh, if I can, I won’t use it”
If effect cluttering is an issue, you should look for a fix without breaking/dampening other parts that are working well. If you play around a bit on bosses, you’ll notice most of the time you can’t see the monster is because of on hit effects, like when he’s flashing blue or white, not because of the projectiles flying it’s way. If you changed this to only display a reduced version for other player’s effects, or just reduce them overall, or change so they don’t affect the monster’s visuals, this wouldn’t be such a big issue and graphics would still be nice.

A build I used to level and farm pretty much since always before Dragonhunter:

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vVAQJARWlsAhehY5QwaIQQEHxD1dfjhcoGANQ9iXi/bLA-TxBBABnpEMgLAglq/Ez+DA8AAwS5ne6CAA-e

Relatively cheap as well, if you’re swimming in gold you can get more expensive runes/sigils.

Strategy is pretty simple, Staff is your go to weapon for tagging mobs in huge events, if you’re solo, run tagging mobs with Staff, drop the Symbol, swap to GS, Symbol and WW. Collect bags and repeat. Use meditations when in trouble or want a quick burst (Fury) during the combo.

I’d like to report a bug I found several times fighting this… thing.

The first one is the most aggravating one, I actually managed to kill one of these on my Elementalist. I think the one I fought was bugged though, because I was actually hitting him about 10% of the times with a chain of hits from Lava Font, Fireball, Feel the Burn and Meteor Shower. Took me about 3 min, but I think this is serious and not working as intended.

The second bug is one that I actually managed to survive his sure insta-kill move where he throws a stone on you and (supposedly) disconnects you from the game while he takes his time dropping your health bar to zero in about… 2 hits.
I’m also sure this is not working as intended because instead of getting disconnected, I only got stunned by about 10 or so seconds, and weirdly enough, he behaved strangely during that time and didn’t kill me.

Please fix these bugs, it’s game-breaking that we, players, are actually able to survive a fight (and even kill) against these godfrogs.

I recently leveled my Necromancer to 80 with Tomes and I’ve been bringing her to WvW, and I was looking at the builds on metabattle and I was wondering why is there no condition focused build for WvW?

I was planning to go with this build (or a variation with Minions), but after checking the WvW builds on metabattle I saw the power focused well build and was wondering why was that picked as the meta build.

Since the time and resources required for that build aren’t cheap, I wanted to ask WvW players why is condition considered inferior to power and if they would recommend against it or not.

For those with the same issues, one of the solutions in this thread helped me:

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/support/support/1-File-Remaining-2/first

Hi,

This happens sometimes and seems to be happening again, I can’t update the game because the Launcher gets stuck and/or doesn’t update the game for some reason.

I’ve tried using the “Gw2.exe -assetsrv 93.188.135.37:80” from another topic 8 months old but it doesn’t work for me.
I’ve also tried using my phone’s internet (another ISP) since this worked in past, but this time didn’t help.

I’m not from the US so my ISP is probably irrelevant, but the internet connection is fine, everything works at full speed except Guild Wars 2.

This event could be infinitely better with a few simple changes:

- We earn extra blooms by the amount of events finished in the map. Over the 10~ or so times I’ve done it, the average of events was 30~ or so. People would actually try to finish them instead of just tagging since everyone wins that way. AFKers would still exist, but if they did that… that’s less rewards for them anyway. This would also reduce the amount to grind (it’s repetitive, and it’s even worse since it’s kinda boring) for the rewards.

- Mobs may not drop loot just like the Silverwastes ones, but they should at least give exp. Everyone would play along even with their low level characters since they’ll be getting something at least. Currently, it’s an event aimed only for the 80s with all the waypoints for more blooms and that punishes lower levels.

That said, it could also be improved by removing what makes it bad in the first place:
- Too grindy
- Map-wide rewarding those willing to WP everywhere
- No rewards per mob killed or event completed
- No exp per mob killed or event completed
- Personal benefit over group benefit
- Unchallenging, repetitive, uninteresting

So, after testing most of the professions that interest me in two beta weekends, I found lots of interesting ideas and new mechanics, but overall, I was mostly disappointed – and I think I’m not alone on this – with the Elite Specializations.

So, let’s start with the name. The word “Elite” means it’s better than the regular, and what makes the Elite specs “Elite”? All of them give access to a new weapon, a new set of skills and changes/enhances your profession mechanic somehow, with the exception of Thief.

The expectation of something “Elite” is to see something greater than what we’re used to, and when we have these trait lines… it’s pretty clear we’ll be disappointed as players.
So I suggest a bunch of things:

Remove the word “Elite” from the new specializations
This way, no one will care if there’s a subpar trait line or not, because there’s 6 of them to choose.

Give access to the new weapons and skills to all professions regardless of specialization
This will stop the thinking “oh I want to use Longbows with Guardians but I feel I have to sacrifice a trait line for it…”
Also, same for skills, no one will care much if you have a set of skills that are useless since they have 20+ already to choose 3.

Make the trait line change/enhance the profession mechanic so it’s just like other trait lines
This will give players a choice, actually, we already have a choice, you’re just increasing our options – and thus the fun of making new builds. Also, give Thieves some love, getting nothing new is really… meh.

With this, if a player doesn’t like the new spec, it’s okay, he doesn’t need to get it, but he still gets the new weapon and skill if he likes it – and doesn’t feel like he has to trade off for that.

Also, since we’re at it… another suggestion: Please buff the Birthday Blaster’s buff time to 30 minutes. A simple improvement for our quality of life.
You’re already made the buff and gave to players, a food effect free of charge, so it’s not supposed to be broken or unbalanced – but you made sure it was only 10 min long so players to benefit of this must keep attention and open their bags every 10 min, look for their blasters, find a place to shoot the cakes and step on it.
The buff isn’t balanced that a player is going to waste 5 seconds every 10 minutes to keep it right? Then it should be a small improvement to reduce the annoyance that it is to refresh it every 10 min. For the few of us who actually use it, that is. Please.

Same, this happened a few times but these past two days happened about 5 times.

Ambient sound still keeps playing, but everything else mutes (sound and music). Also seems like there’s a memory leak because once I’ve tried to play through it, even with the FPS drop (10~20, and I usually play at 120) and when it became unbearable and I quit, it said my “System” process was using 75% of the RAM (8gb) with only Windows and a Browser open…

Also, if it helps, I think all the times it happened it was on Silverwastes (normal and beta), but I spend most of the time on these maps so…

Well if we can dream… (in no particular order)

- Mounts
With about 50% or 75% movement speed… would make traveling easier. Also, less Waypoints so we actually get to walk around more and see more people in the world as well.

- Specializations
Greatsword / Sword on Elementalist. Rifle on Mesmer.

- More Weapon Types
Two Handed Axes, Spear on ground, Crossbows, One Handed Hammers, etc

- More Weapon Skills
Being able to choose different skills for the same weapon set for extra customization, giving us the option of being more supportive, offensive or defensive with various sets.

- More Adventures
Like the Guild Quests but in a way that anyone, everywhere, can join.

- …Raids.
Yeah, raids. I’m against the usual concept of Raids and it’s time-locked content, and that’s not the type of Raid I’d like to see, but something that you guys surely can come up in a fun manner and not so restrictive.
And as more and more gets released, people would have plenty of content to do, since they’re all going to stay there and won’t become obsolete because of the level cap increase (since there isn’t).

I’ve played mainly with the Chronomancer and Dragonhunter this weekend, and Dragonhunter was a really letdown for me.

The Longbow is awesome, that for sure is. The skill #5 has a too long CD though, even if it has all those bloated effects (AoE, pulse, big damage, circle of warding… I’d be fine with just the AoE + some condition like Vulnerability).
Traps are… weird, but since we’re mostly melee, should be easy to pull one or two off in a fight.

In my opinion, the main issue with the Dragonhunter are the traits.

[Virtuous Action]: Mixed feelings on this one, some prefer the old virtues, some the new… I’m in between, but I’d say probably the new ones are better.

[Piercing Light]: Condition damage, and with such a weak effect? No thanks…
[Soaring Devastation]: Good choice.
[Zealot’s Aggression]: Passive but excellent overall.

[Defender’s Dogma]: Hmm… really… might be sorta useless. What if I’m already on trigger point to my VoJ? We don’t really control “Oh I’m getting VoC proc in the next second and I’m exactly at VoJ so lucky!”
So it’s a really, really really weak/random effect.

[Bulwark]: Okay.
[Dulled Senses]: We have only a few knockbacks and they’re mainly weapon dependant: Hammer, Staff, Shield and the new Longbow. Outside of these, I can only think of Sanctuary. Okay but I’d need to be using one of these weapons, with one of these skills that grant these knockbacks (and they’re all on huge CDs except for the Shield) only for an extra CC…
[Hunter’s Determination]: Seems like a PvP trait. I don’t play much PvP, but seems overpowered.

[Pure of Sight]: Sigh… so this only works with Scepter (to be obsolete with Dragonhunter’s Longbow) and Longbow. Guardians are still a heavy melee profession so this feels half-wasted.

[Big Game Hunter]: Excellent!
[Heavy Light]: Another PvP trait, or to complement [Pure of Sight]. Okay I guess… but locked to the Longbow.
[Hunter’s Fortification]: Ah, excellent trait, but seems misplaced, grandmaster traits shouldn’t be huge, affecting how you effectively play the profession? This doesn’t feel like it.

What I mean about the lacking traits are:
- All the minors are… VERY minors. If I didn’t plan on using the Longbow or Scepter, I wouldn’t pick these minors AT ALL.
- Adept: The trait affecting the new skill type is really weak.
- Master: Weak all around, centered in specific weapon/skills and situational only.
- Grandmaster: One good trait, others don’t match the tier/profession.

Comparing with Chronomancer, one which I enjoyed greatly:

- Shields and Wells: Shields are okay, Wells finally fill the AoE Mesmers lacked in my opinion (for PvE). Participating in those mobs-dense events with lots of other players I had an easier time tagging mobs and didn’t felt like I was barely doing damage besides to a few targets.

- Continuum Shift: Awesome, simply awesome. Provides more skillful play from the players and rewards those efforts.

- Minor Traits: They all work regardless of weapon or build of choice. I’d pick any of them with whatever weapon I’d choose, since they’re all useful.
- Adept: One trait affecting the new skill type, others are okay.
- Master: Two useful traits, one trait to combo. All of them useful regardless of build/weapon.
- Grandmaster: Two excellent traits, working very nicely with whatever playstyle I pick, and another one that seem to fit a specific build (slow).

All of them are useful and none are specific to the Shield, I’d be fine using the weapons I always did with these traits and only the playstyle was enhanced somehow.

Guardian’s are still strong but besides getting the Longbow, I wouldn’t really pick Dragonhunter at all… I wish the traits had a bigger impact in the Guardian’s general playstyle and not focused on being a ranged focused profession, and they could synergize better with other specializations besides the Virtues.

Wow thanks to this topic I finally solved my misunderstanding that 10% was 11%. Or sometimes 12.1%.

¬_¬

Thaddeus.4891:

A couple of little things put together. 4 pts in Water, Cantrip Mastery, Aquamancer’s Alacrity, Mist Form, Lightning Flash, Mixe of Soldier, Valkiry and Berserker.

…

I suggested the S/D because of the utility of Might and Fury stacking, not personal DpS… why would you use anything other than Berserker if want full DpS?

Thaddeus.4891:

It’s not a bad build, but OP asked for meta build. And you give him an personnal adaptation of meta build not to optimized dps in certain situation, but to increase your survivability how you prefer.

That’s why I said they were suggestions. I considered my personal experience, since I don’t expect all fights to be simply standing still and spamming skills like a DpS race.

I just questioned why did you consider it not a good damage build when it has nearly everything of the maximum damage build output you can with a few changes for survivability (and I’m talking about the Staff build if it’s about DpS).

Thaddeus.4891:

That can work if you have a hard time playing. But I wouldn’t touch this kind of build with a ten foot pole if you have the slight ambition of a good damage build.

So what do you define as a “good damage” build? Out of the builds I posted, there’s only 2 points that aren’t allocated for damage (2 in Water, which could be more useful in 2 Earth for another extra 10% damage if you’re close to the target or Air if you don’t care).

Blasting Staff is also an increase in damage of Meteor Shower, which is plenty used…

Suggestions:

- Staff 6/2/0/4/2
Internal Fire, Pyromancer’s Alacrity, Persisting Flames or Pyromancer’s Puissant
Bolt to the Heart
Cantrip Mastery, Vital Striking
Blasting Staff

Ether Renewal, Mist Form, Lightning Flash, Arcane Wave or Frost Bow, any Elite

Full Berserker and Scholar Runes, get your survivability from the massive Staff’s CCs and your two cantrips, learn to never get hit (to make sure your two 10% extra damage are always up) and enjoy your awesome damage and good healing for emergencies.

- Scepter/Dagger 6/4/0/4/0
Internal Fire, Pyromancer’s Alacrity, Persisting Flames
Bolt to the Heart, Air Training
Cantrip Mastery, Vital Striking or Aquamancer’s Alacrity

Ether Renewal or Signet of Healing or Arcane Brilliance, Mist Form, Lightning Flash, Arcane Wave.

Mix of Soldier or Valkyrie and Berserker, Strength Runes.
Use the Arcane Brilliance heal if you want to achieve maximum Might stacking. The full combo (Ring of Fire, Dragon’s Tooth, Phoenix, Arcane Brilliance, Arcane Wave, Earthquake, Churning Earth) gives 18 stacks of Might for about 30 secs and 1 min of Fury and that’s so ridiculous…

Personally I still leave the 4 in Water for some survivability but it’s manageable without.

For World Bosses like Teq and such (the ones you don’t crit), always use Frost Bow (#4 and #3 then throw it away) instead of Arcane Wave unless you really care about Might stacking.

For Sigils, Sigil of Force and Bloodlust for maximum damage. Your crit % should be pretty high already with Berserker’s and/or Fury, so get the extra damage.

I voice my support for adding an option of selling/trading your gem items for something else or whatever…

I bought all three unlimited tools when they came out, the Consortium Sickle, Molten Pick and Chop Axe, and if I recall correctly, they were 800 gems each and soulbound.
Since I had two characters which I played (still play) often at 80, I actually bought two of these, and now that they’re account bound… it just saves me the hassle of transfering them, but it still felt like a waste of gems.

Not to mention I felt like I had to buy the Watchwork Mining Pick just because of the added materials and I think I have about 700ish of them not, about 20g~ or it.

It’s not game breaking at all, because I had to mine about three times the ores for that amount, since I get about 1 sprocket per node, rarely less, rarely more, but it’s still an upgrade over the Molten Pick.

Wait, you see, I’m not arguing if it’s terrible or good, the problem is that it is utterly useless (besides the point Saiyan made).

When you have two things, for the same cost, but one perform much better than the other, why do you have two options? That can’t even be called an option, it’s just bait for un-informed players.

Even Radiant Retaliation has it’s uses, should someone build for Condition Damage. It isn’t completely useless (it’s just bad).

I’ve been trying some builds out on gw2skills.net and even with the maximum Power attainable (4013), Kindled Zeal still isn’t better than Amplified Wrath.

So why does it even exist? Just to waste a Grandmaster Trait slot?

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fVAQFAxElDtZIGCNx9QZtRoDqWA8kXB-TxRBABXp8rS1foZ/hFeAAnpEEgLAQe6ACAcA87vBgzP/8zP/8O/8zP/8zLDg+YA-e

Looks like a pattern… have you tried proccing the Sigil on the Thief with non-auto-attacks?

@OP: Really, consider yourself saved of a couple of hours of extreme boredom and sleepiness since you couldn’t move on the last mission.

I recently helped a friend finish his personal story, and it was so boring to the point we talked “want to play something else after this?” like 4 times during the entire dungeon.

I think it’s a waste since the story had so much potential from the first missions, but somewhere along the way they just decided “!@#$ this story” and things get bad, VERY BAD.
I’m the type that laughs when I see something terribly bad, and I remember I didn’t laugh when there was that “oh someone died to an eye in the middle of nowhere here”. It was bad to an extent that it wasn’t even funny, it felt as if they were doing it on purpose.

And finally, in the last dungeon, there’s like 5~6 times where you can really fall asleep if you’re even slightly tired.
Although that being said, you’ll really enjoy when you finish the dungeon, not because you completed the story or fought and awesome battle, but because you’ll never need to see whatever the crap that was ever again (unless you have friends (and they ask for help (and insist on it))).

I feel a bit ashamed when I recommend a game to someone, they play, don’t like or point some issues and I have to put the face “well I’m sorry [this/that] is bad and I recommended it to you”, and this was one of these occasions.
Ever since I finished the story, I always told my friends to forget about it (so they don’t have to experience that) but some are stubborn or completists…

The endgame always felt rushed in GW2 and they went on fixing bit by bit until it got decent, it’s just a shame they had the same care with the story.

I watched the last 2 or 3 games of the WTS because I’m coming back to play GW2 regularly and I wanted to know what a competitive match looked like.
I enjoy watching competitive matches of the games I enjoy, and I’m an avid fan of LoL and I watch a lot of LCS and OGN whenever I have the chance, this is a comparison of some sort with a great eSports game scene, so please take this as critique.

I enjoyed the production values, the casters didn’t felt awkward and the quality seemed really good, but they didn’t speak much about plays (like just pointing out) and for a fast paced, chaotic PvP battle I got lost on what was happening on various occasions, even though I do know the game (it’s skills, mechanics and such).

At some point, they shouted “he sent him flying!” or something like that. It was a Hammer Guardian who hit #4 on someone and sent them flying out of the point, and the rest of their team were around.
I was like “So it’s a mess of a battle, 3v3 at least, and someone got hit by Hammer’s #4. Is that a big deal?”

I might be ignorant since I don’t play much PvP.

My greatest gripe with it was the camera/observer control. That felt… awful, really.
I wanted to watch some action, see the players in action, their cooldowns and such (their PoV) and the camera switched between player PoV and observer PoV too often – which is not bad, but it was really badly timed.

I remember the caster shouting “FOUR DOWN!” or something like that so I thought “woa, four down is a nice thing but… where, where is it? Why is this camera showing an empty point with no one there while they’re screaming about something I’m not seeing?”

Another time was when the camera went to a player’s PoV as he 1v1 someone else. The fight went on for like 15 seconds, things started to get exciting, one of them was in danger of going down, I was curious as to how it would go, who would win and… for some reason, the camera moved to show someone else capping a point by himself.
I was like “so capping a point alone must be more thrilling and interesting than watching whatever was the result of that fight”.

The camera being too far away from the point is also good to see the entire scene, but also makes it harder to follow when good moves/plays.

Using LoL as an example, when a solo/team fight is happening it’s much more interesting to actually see the fighting than someone else farming their lane solo in my opinion.
It’s also easy to follow moves/plays since the camera follows the same pattern and show a specific thing, it doesn’t change angles and positions to show that the fight has extended and is divided in 2 subfights. If something interesting happens and the camera doesn’t pick, it’s replayed later.

This is my particular taste, but I enjoy watching competitive games to see the playerskill of those players and teams that trained hard to obtain them, so the more and better you can show it, the better.

Please keep improving these streams, I especially enjoy the action combat of GW2 and would love to see it become as big as it deserves.

The items in the gemstore never offer you any improvement over other players in anything competitive at all.

There are some boosters you can buy to improve your stats in PvE, but they’re minimal and that’s it. Other stuff that come often in the Trading Post are skins and some quality of life items, such as unlimited gathering tools.

Also note that you can buy gems with game gold, so you don’t have to spend real money unless you really want to get stuff fast.

I think this is probably know but… the Guardian’s Sword Wave attack is really bugged on nearly anything that doesn’t look like a monster/player.

Yesterday I was attacking the Great Wurm Eggs on Bloodtide Coast and my 3rd auto attack would never connect.
There were various other occasions of this happening before, but I don’t remember, except that I remember it always was on objects (on mobs it seems to work fine).

I already have the Heroic Edition from when the game was released, so I have the Mistfire and Rytlock and such, but it changed since then, now it comes with a chest, the armor skin and a 18 slot bag.

If I buy the Digital Deluxe Edition in the TP for 500 gems, do get I everything again plus the extras even though I (supposedly) already have them?

I play for some time, I have a good knowledge on game mechanics and I play a Guardian, Elementalist and have a fresh Thief and Mesmer.
I play mostly WvW.

Recently, I dueled a Warrior on my Elementalist in WvW. I didn’t even scratched his health. Only once I managed to bring him to 80% health which he healed and then that was it.

Then I went to sPvP to get some experience, I fought an immortal Engineer that I think it was a condi build, I’d get like all conditions and get locked in a chain of CCs and I was dead in 3~4 seconds (I was using berserker).

Another match, I fought a Ranger that simply opened on me with Rapid Fire and that’d take about 10k of my 17k health even with a dodge or two during the skill.

So I’d like to know how to PvP. I see various other guys who are killable, but every match or other I find these unkillable with infinite damage guys, and I’d like to know how to fight them.

The builds I use:
Elementalist S/D, half Soldier half Berserker (WvW)
4/4/0/4/2, Mist Form, Lightning Flash, Arcane Wave, Ether Renewal, Fiery Greatsword

Guardian GS/Staff, full Soldier
6/0/2/6, Wall of Reflection/Stand your Ground, Merciful Intervention, Judge’s Intervention, Shelter, Renewed Focus

Guardian Sword/Shield & Scepter/Torch, full Soldier
0/6/2/6/0, same as above

My Guardian’s as tank as I could get while still getting some damage, but I feel I’m nowhere close to be like those unkillable guys. And my Elementalist is just bonus points/honor badge walking around the map. How do I get like that?

I’ve read that all professions are getting a new weapon and that’ll be as a profession specialization, according to the wiki example, Rangers will be able to equip a Staff and will be named “Druid” and will have more Nature-like skills.

I’ve read in the blog as well that we’ll be able to change specializations really quick, just like traits and skills.

So, will these specializations change the profession completely, for example the Ranger, if he swaps to Druid, will all his weapons and skills be changed to be more like Druid-style, or only the staff?

This pattern is familiar… oh, it’s the same one I’m having!

I complained in this forum about this same issue a month or two ago, people suggested a bunch of things, I tried them all, none really solved.
From what I can remember, there’s two things you can do that might work:

- Try a different internet. People suggested that there’s been some connection issues here and there, and when they used their phone’s 3G/4G connection, it went smooth. I didn’t try this though, too much hassle.

- Another option that worked for me was… waiting. I remember having this problem during the afternoon, then I tried to connect way late in the night (or in the day after, I don’t remember), and finally managed to update the game.

It’s really curious though, how does the patcher manages to download everything BUT the last file and get stuck there… with no error message, nothing.

I don’t like to rant, but this and many other technical issues seem to plague this game way more often than any other online game I’ve ever played, and it’s really frustrating when this happens when you think “hey I’m going to log in GW2 today after a month away”.

I’ve formatted and reinstalled everything this weekend, and I just logged on GW2 and although the PC felt really lighter, the game seemed much much worse/slower than I remember.

I was on Frostgourge Sound and although there was literally nothing on screen, the FPS was in the 20~ range, when I used to play with about 40~60 on average on nearly map but WvW.

Did something change drastically in this time or am I missing something?
I remember I installed some profiles from AMD when the game released for GW2 optimizations, but since this was about a year ago, by now it must be already in their latest drivers right?

My PC is CPU i7 3770, Radeon HD 9750, 8gb RAM.
Settings where set to Auto-Detect, but I switched a few things out (to lower settings) to help improve things but still couldn’t get past 30 FPS.

Am I just imagining things, and is there anything I can do to help optimize?

I just noticed some items can’t be salvaged, such as the Badge of Honor items and Order armors. Why?

I knew about Karma gear being unsavageable and the logic people guessed was because they didn’t want any sort of Karma <> Gold rate, but Badges and Order (which is gold) too?

Can’t you guys (developers) work on something to allow us to salvage these items instead of clicking to DESTROY them?

Plus, something that I see as a flaw in your item design is… the Upgrade Extractor. Why would someone buy something for 250 gems to extract an upgrade when it’s much more worth it to sell these gems and buy the upgrade again?
Sure, prices of gems aren’t fixed but… even if they were worth double of what they are right now, there’s only one or two upgrades worth more than 10g… that’s some weird logic in there.

Even if we only get the chance of getting the upgrades back using our regular salvage kits, could you consider adding this suggestion?

This could be bad news for you but… you have two options:

1. If the game data files are corrupted (unlikely), reinstalling (re-download, important!) the game should work.

2. If your HD is corrupted, scandisk (right click, properties, tools, error-checking, scan for bad sectors) should tell you if it is, and if it is, it should be able to fix it.
If that’s the case it’s good to start looking for a new HD to backup your stuff…

Jester.9645:

Anet response to problems just keeps getting worse and worse it seems. Looking forward to Wildstar coming out soon and dropping this game altogether.

It’s not becoming worse, it was always like this.
I thought it was understandable back then when there were a bunch of servers to keep track and they couldn’t just keep resetting them, but now that everything’s basically merged into one, neglecting players for such a long time (2 days!) is really… something…

I really enjoyed this game, but I’m starting to lose hope for it. Time come and go and nothing is ever resolved/improved…

Community
The game has guilds, but they’re virtually useless except for Guild Missions. Those Guild Missions are really fun and a step in the “really fun” content, but I think they’re very restricted (only to Guilds who farm a certain amount of things) and limited (and has a minimum amount of players).
This might seems that I’m suggesting Raids in the game, but I’m not, any kind of content that you can enjoy as a group (and have more fun in a group) would be great.

Ending
Without permanent content, or clear short term objectives (such as Raids, but I’m not suggesting it), there’s no feeling of “Ah, I finished the game!”. Sure it is a MMO and there is no ending but, that’s a goal players can play for and keep interested until they reach it.
And by then there’s a new content/patch/expansion ready and the cycle repeats.
Not having this goal is one of the primary reasons of why I think people lose interest in the game.
Some friends of mine still go back to WoW every now and then just to play the new expansion’s content and then quit it again. They’re just interested in consuming all the story/bosses it has, and they’re not hardcore raiders as well, so it’s just about leveling, gearing a bit, doing the new dungeons and then they’re done.

Conclusion
When I asked my friends who quit, one of them mentioned that GW2 isn’t the kind of game that you can play for hours nonstop and doesn’t feel the time passing.
He said the game feels tiring somehow. I asked him what was that was causing this “not fun” and he replied with “I don’t know, but think of it this way: What is it in the game that makes you come home (from work) wanting to play?”

He added “In WoW, even if there wasn’t anything to do, I’d still log in and would browse the Auction House”.
If GW2 had this “something” I think it would be better for both the game and the players.

Share your opinions and ideas on this and let’s hope a developer reads it, if not for GW2 maybe for a future GW3…

(This is not a rant)

I have friends who used to play GW2 and quit a while ago, and they didn’t show the same level of interest when we played other games (MMOs, our last one was WoW before GW2), and although I still keep playing occasionally, they don’t even log in anymore.

I think this is an issue and I’d like to start this thread and maybe give the developers some ideas on how to reach the same level of enjoyment I/we had from other games.

I don’t know how “healthy” the game is so I’m not saying the game is dying, and since I like the game I’d also like my friends (and myself) to have a higher interest when playing it. When I asked all of them, they all said something along the lines of “I dunno, the game is missing something” but they couldn’t said exactly what. I’m going to post some ideas on what it could be.

So let me start saying that the game is really good in some aspects, like the awesome graphics and the great combat mechanics, but it falls short in some others, mostly content/design.

Story
Take this as a constructive criticism, but the story sucks. Not the world, not the setting, but the personal story and how it is told. It feels uninspiring, boring and simply cheap at times.
Also having it spaced between levels meaning you’re supposed to complete do a story mission, then complete a map, then story, then map, is kinda annoying because of the running back and forth and because sometimes you don’t want to do something else.
This is something a friend of mine complained “I want to finish my story but I can’t because now it’s 4 levels above me”.
Having a better personal story and allowing players to play it on their current level would please these players who aren’t interested in running around the world but want to learn about the world/their history. (The friend I mentioned cares more about history, and he’s new to GW so he was probably looking only for the story to see if it interests him as much as the WoW Lore he loves talking so much)

Lasting Content
The world of WoW is always growing. I also don’t really like Raids because of the idea of keeping farming it over and over again (and I was a hardcore raider during WoW BC/WotLK) and how they “reseted” items each patch/expansion.
But still, each new patch had new stuff to do, so there were always something new to experience, and even if you’re not a hardcore raider or you’re just playing casually, you could always do the older (and easier) raids to enjoy the content.
GW2 has the Living Story, which I found a pain to keep tracking, and mostly annoying because I missed a chapter here and there and then became totally uninterested in continuing it.
When I called my friends to participate in these events, they were too bothered with their map completion or personal story to start a new story on something else completely unrelated to what they know. And when they’re not, when they finally reach their 80, the content is already gone.
More lasting content would probably be better for the world and the players. If it’s fun, even new players can enjoy it at some point.

Character Uniqueness and Fun Items
When playing a character the player (most imo) grows attached to it. They want their character to feel unique and only, special to them. They’re investing hours on creating and playing that character, so that’s natural.
In WoW you have specific Talent Trees that you name your character class: “I’m a Destruction Warlock” or “I’m an Affliction Warlock”.
GW2 have Traits and Skills, but these don’t even compare in making an character unique. Weapons is what does the most difference, but with only 5 skills it’s really limited (not a bad thing, Monster Hunter is the same and is great as well).

I don’t walk around thinking “Oh I’m an awesome Fire Elementalist”, although that might be the point of the professions (not having a specialization that defines your whole character).

Something else that I think that falls into this is the items and unique stuff. Most of my friends complained about not having mounts, and they say how “unique” they are with their rare mounts in WoW. Or their rare gear, visually distinguished. You can have your character in a stunning gear, but no one knows how hard it is to get (you can’t see the stats, but you can know where the skin comes from at least).
Having an Inspect and showing off is probably what players want when they want to feel “good” with their character and showing all their accomplishments with it.

I just got my outfits changed and noticed that you can’t match pieces anymore, is that correct?

For example I hate the looks of the head winter outfit, and it matched nicely with the earmuffer, but now I’m stuck with that hat? bummer…

Is there any plans to equip/unequip pieces separately planned?

(Also why is it that the trader got me 5 pieces of outfit if I can only use one?)

I use a build that is 20/20/0/20/10.
Ideally for max damage I’d say go for 30/20/0/10/10 or 30/10/10/10/10.

The most important thing you have to get are those flat damage modifiers, they’re the ones that really bump up your damage.

Fire VI: +10% damage
Fire 25: +10% damage to burning foes
Air VI: +20% damage to foes below 33% health
Earth IV: +5% damage to bleeding foes
Earth VI: +10% damage to targets within 600 range
Water VI: +10% damage when your health is above 90%
Arcana V: Blasting Staff

The weakest ones would be Earth, so if you had to pass on any, I’d say skip these.

Use a full Berserker gear, Ruby Trinkets, Ruby Gems, Scholar Runes (10% damage when over 90% health), and Sigil of Force (5% damage) on your weapon.
Having another weapon with Bloodlust so you can stack to 25 and then switch for the Force weapon is also good.

Don’t ever skip Blasting Staff. Even though it doesn’t give you a flat damage increase, the area it affects will increase your damage by MUCH more.
You’ll be hitting much more targets and making your damage count.

Get used to being OHKO’ed or going down in less than a second, and take this opportunity to learn how to avoid damage completely or how to play safely.
And… well, enjoy OHKOing people and seeing insane crit numbers (like a 14k Dragon Tooth, or a 9k Meteor Hit).

Equip Stability or Stun Breaker skill into a Utility Skill Slot (also, you should always have one).
Run into the gift, press Action. Get knocked down first, then launched. Press Utility Skill. Grab presents (if any).

Run.

RUN!

Elementalist is guaranteed fun if you give it a chance (some people don’t).

Not saying they’re perfectly viable/balanced, but the fun is definitely there.

Get a Staff, be a AoE Master and enjoy seeing big crits all over the screen. Excellent support as well if you’re in a group.

Get a Dagger/Dagger, turn into a street fighter character. Dash here, there, evades, some few heavy hitting spells, lots of awesome spell sequences.

Get a Scepter/Dagger-Focus, enjoy practicing your one-shot combos in your targets. Want to test the ultimate burst? Want to see the biggest crits ever? Scepter/Dagger.

And not to forget the utilities, very well defined giving much more customization.
Do you want to deal massive bursts? Arcane skills are for you.
Do you want to get excellent battle support? Try out Glyphs.
Do you want to be even more versatile? Conjured Weapons.
Do you want to survive? Cantrips.
Do you want to… eh… never press your utilities? Signets then.

All of this can be yours for the modicum price of the lowest health and lowest defense!

Caution: Profession is not recommended for those who rage being one/two shotted. If you try it and your rage starts going up, immediately seek a reroll for Warrior.

Hmm let’s see, from an Elementalist POV:

First boss, if you carefully take out spiderlings before, is a piece of cake if you range. Melee even, but I don’t have Vigor 100% so I can’t dodge forever. I’ve successfully solo mele’ed the Spider on my Guardian though.

P1/P3 Burrow Event: Hard, but soloable. If you have Icebow it makes things really easy but you’ll run out of CDs eventually and you’ll have to start kiting, which isn’t an issue if you’re using Staff (and you should).

Collect the Scepters: Easily Soloable.
Kill 4 Burrows: Easily Soloable.

Howling King: Easily kitable, you’ll have to take your time to carefully avoid adds and kill them in the fire, the boss shouldn’t be hard at all since all it does is sneeze at you.

Colossus Rumblus: Warmaster Grast can tank for you, if you stay in the pillar corner you can avoid his shockwave attacks, but probably not his auto attacks. This seems doable, but a bit hard.

So yes, it is soloable but it might take forever for you to kill bosses.

Also, you skip whatever you can (Kohler, Troll).
There’s probably some youtube videos of people soloing it if you search for it (I haven’t), so that might help showing you how.

That is the East Entrance that I spoke of, and there’s debris in the entrance blocking it.
The other one I know of is where the NPCs escape through (gate closed).

I’ve been looking for another entrance but unsuccessful so far…

There’s an event after the Eye of Zhaitan boss in Straits of Devastation that you have to lead the NPCs out of the catacombs.
When this happens, the east entrance is blocked by rocks and the west entrance is closed by a gate, which you have to find the gatekeeper (inside the catacombs) to open it.

Now, the event is stuck in Tarnished Coast server, I tried getting in from the west, gate closed, tried from the east, tunnel collapsed, so how can I complete the event so the event can reset?

All games requires skills, it just happens they’re different.

GW2, however, does seem to have a higher skill ceiling than other MMOs.

How other MMOs works:
You press the button. Skill starts casting. If it’s not canceled/interrupted, skill goes off, and WILL hit the target. (If there’s a math hit/evasion calculation, it’s calculated then)
You get close, you press melee skill, melee skill goes off. Calculates hit and damage.

How GW2 differentiates from it:
You press the button, Skill starts casting. If it’s not canceled/interrupted, skill goes off, and IF it actually hits the target, it deals damage. There is no hit/miss calculation, it’s based if you actually hit or not.
Melee skills works the same way. You press the button, skill goes off. If it hits the enemy area, it deals damage.

So, other MMOs don’t have much of this “action” part where you can dodge or avoid attacks by moving or by having fast reflexes. They’re sorta turn-based, math-heavy, like all old school RPGs. “Skill” is heavily based on strategy.
GW2 “Skill” is based on strategy and dexterity.

It’s still a different set of skills, so saying GW2 is “skill-based game” doesn’t imply the other games aren’t.