Guild Wars 2

Hexin.5603:

Useless weapon / class – scepter guardian … never see anyone in wvw using it – so it’s gotta be garbage.

My friend keeps scepter on swap in WvW with his Great Sword guardian. He uses the AoE of smite to break siege weapons.

He did tell me he’d never make it a main weapon though, nor does he build any trait points around it specifically, all going towards his Greatsword. But he never goes into WvW without it on swap since its range(And AoE skill) are vital for breaking stuff on walls, and works just fine with no trait points put towards the weapon.

A well built and well played ranger(Someone who knows their class and picks every point in their build for a reason) is not pleasant to fight again, and a boon as an ally. It’s something about their survivability that always makes me think twice before I pounce on a lone ranger with my thief.

Isaiah Cartwright.8569:

Seems like people really enjoy answering questions so I’ll throw out a few more.

How big do you expect a squad to be?
What kind of content is a PvE commander most useful?
Is money a good enough gate for commander tags?

I am going to answer it from my point of view and my experiences. Going to answer #3 first, then #2, then #1.

#3: I was the first commander of my original WvW guild on Kaineng. We all collaborated to farm the cash, put it to the guild chest, with the intention that once it’s 100g, a commander tome is bought. Took a few weeks, but we got it.(This was a few weeks back in the first month or two of launch, mind you). Community(guild) vote on which of the two people looking to command would get it. It felt like a proper gateway back then because 100g was a lot.

I say back then because as time went on, the influx of money was easier. Not to mention all the RMT gold going around then(I had guildmates getting hundreds of gold from RMT and getting commander tomes. Their gateway of entry was nil compared to mine, just some cash.

Taking this into consideration, I feel that cash is a STILL a good barrier of entry. It keeps most of the unexperienced players from picking it up too early in their time of playing. However, anyone with half a brain knows how to get money easily and get as many commander tomes as they want if they have the cash to back it up.

To combat the issue I have, with RMT gold buyers getting commander tomes anytime they wish, there should also be some kind of time-consuming sidequest to turn a bought tome into a usable tome. A sidequest that doesn’t have to do with farming materials, but completing a chain of events. At least a half hour to do on average. This would make it more annoying for anyone buying their way to get the tome, while also making it feel epic(All dependent on the quest story obviously) for those who get the tome the way I did. RMT people can’t stand waiting or having to do things they can’t buy(Know from experience with those guildmates who bought).

#2: I have used the Commander Tag legitimately in PvE once, and it was amazingly useful for that one time I did.

It was for the Halloween quest line a year ago for the backpiece. I led a quest train for many people, guildies and non guildies, to go get the parts in one shot. I used my commander tag to keep everyone on track, together, and informed for each person(As they joined my squad too). It worked flawlessly to keep people on track and to know where I am and what to follow. Just about nobody got lost or sidetracked because of it. For this kind of quest, where I need to travel across Tyria, it was fantastic for me. I have never really had to legitimately use it again like that except on rare occasions to rally people to kill a dragon or something when I was the first to show up, but even then it was superfluous to just yelling in chat.

#1: There should be no limit to a squad. Knowing having no limit probably wouldn’t fly with the back end, it should be as large as possible. Like, at LEAST 100, if not more. You want to be inclusive as a commander to as many people as possible, public or guild, and more is always better. I might have once hit the squad cap back in the day, but I rarely did(And if I did on other occasions in wvw, I just was never able to notice).

Really shouldn’t run a shortbow without at least 15 in deadly arts.

Weakening with choking gas is ungodly.

It also makes your dagger autoattack and steal/mug apply weakness, too. And the poisoning venom now weakens as well.

Don’t underestimate weakness. It gives you and anyone you’re with more survivability in the long run.

Look, if you’re using a skill that gives you all the boons, you’re getting protection too.

Protection technically cuts out more damage than Boon Hate gives.

All Boon Hate is doing is giving the discipline tree a neat way to gain more damage, and a neat way to cut into protection-heavy builds(Eles, I’m looking at you).

It’s sustained damage, with mug>CnD>Tac Strike as a burst when steal is on cooldown(Fantastic burst too when they crit, and the stun shuts down their ability to heal it off).

S/D is sustained damage with great control. Yes, you autoattack all day long, but it’s pretty good damage(Heck, it’s more than pistol whip in the long run). Plus, you’re only autoattacking between the CnD>Tac Strikes(Or other utility skills as seen fit based on the fight).

With the change to mug moreso than flanking strike, it won’t be able to burst as high, since the burst combo relies on the crits. It’ll give more survivability with the heal though, I guess.

You ALWAYS have burst if you have Mug and CnD before, regardless of main weapon, as that was the true bulk of the burst… now, not so much since mug can’t crit.

PS: My build already steals boon with Bountiful Theft. And let me tell you, it’s amazing, regardless of who you’re up against. As long as Flanking Strike is FLUID and not AWKWARD, it’ll be great, but I am afraid of losing the ability to chain the evades together. Hopefully the animation is fast for both of them and doesn’t root. Gotta try the new flanking strike before passing judgement, but based on mug’s descriptiong, that’s easy to pass judgement on.

Confusion needed to change. The closer it gets to spvp levels, the better.

This change won’t effect a good Mesmer(Or other classes with access to confusion). It will, however, tone down the one-trick pony confusion builds that are uncatchable.

I hope I can still chain the evades together quickly if I have a lot of initiative and HAVE to dodge.

If not, at least I still got my short bow for that.

I’ll pass judgement when it changes. I normally rarely use flanking strike(and I main S/D), but when I do use it, there is no substitute for what it can do.

When I have a dagger offhand, Steal is almost always on cooldown because cnd > steal is now in muscle memory.

If I have a pistol offhand, however, I forget to use Steal. A lot. It just doesn’t flow with it for some reason to me.

Shortbow is a special case. I steal into them and then D-shot backwards while a cluster bomb falls onto their face. It’s one of my little burst combos that keeps me 100% safe thanks to the evade in D-shot and puts me back out at range without wasting a real dodge.

Shortbow is better with power. Explode your cluster bombs just before they hit, and they’ll do a little more damage from their explosions combined than the single large one. Plus you’ll also get 3 bleed stacks for extra damage instead of one.

You just can’t stack up the conditions fast enough with shortbow to make a condi build viable, but a power build is viable thanks to the raw power of cluster bomb.

Now if you can suppliment your condition damage without harming your power, then that’s fantastic. Celestial Gear or Rampager gear are options for adding condition damage to your shortbow without losing much of the punch. I personally add some celestial since it keeps the crit damage and gives you great stats all over to boot. You can get celestial gear outside the mists on ascended accessories.

I use S/D + SB with Berserker gear, Mesmer Runes(Daze), +Stun% sigils on the S and D(Fire on my Shortbow), and Celestial Amulet and rings with berserker earrings(Will change earrings to celestial when I get them ascended).

My traits are 15/0/10/15/30. Mug, weaken with poison(Shortbow and steal, dagger if I mainhand it), init back on stealth, stealth on fall damage(with reduction, else it’s might on dodge) end returned on dodge, and tricks is might, swiftness, and fury for myself and allies in an aoe, vigor for myself and 2 boons stolen from the enemy, and daze. All when I steal(plus the passives).

My steal determines the fight, more or less. And with the ability to steal boons, I can control the flow of battle as I see fit. With fury granted, I can live without anything in the precision line, and with points everywhere else and the celestial accessories, I have great survivability for one who should be a glass cannon. Add this on top of S/D stunlocking people all day with extra daze and you have one scary single target lockdown adversary. Shortbow weakening enemies in an aoe with choking gas is also very beneficial in pve and wvw.

I’d go into the build more, but I don’t have time. I’ve used this build with very little variation for as long as I can remember though.

PS: You work best with others, preferably other thieves and mesmers who can stealth. Your control just makes them better. S/D is a beautiful playmaker. A LeBron James of the thief world.

What the hell has happened to ET and this tier in the few months I’ve been gone?

Don’t call old war stories Trolling. I have yet to see Eredon or Ferguson camped by SF in both EB and their Borderland for a day, let alone an entire week.

I’ve seen horrible things that broke servers in my day, and they don’t phase me. SF isn’t even close to as scary as what I’ve seen in history. And that’s why you guys are nothing more than a joke and not a tangible threat like the other servers I’ve seen pass through. No commitment.

I’ve committed 12 hour shifts one week back in the day on Kaineng to stop people in our Borderland to prevent our keeps from ever flipping that entire week. We still only took second place. But 2 keeps NEVER flipped that entire week. But we still did it to show we could stop Devona if we tried. SF doesn’t have that discipline. And I don’t have my men from Kaineng either, but that’s here nor there.

SF is but a disorganized Horde. Yes, they overwhelm, but once they leave, we can retake everything. A real server that wants to move up in tier wouldn’t allow us to retake. You can do it in EB pretty well, so why not the borderlands? Stonemist got your tongue?

You lack discipline and would never cut it if you were outmanned. I am glad you are not of my server.

Mesmer 3 rarely gets used. Usually the mesmer either has rallied before then due to his crazy stomp breaking #2 and confusion inducing 1(and 2, clone does it), or has been stomped before even being able to use it.

Either way, buff Engy down state. Seriously.

Trolling? I dare SF to hold Cliffside or Dawn’s Eyrie for 24 hours unbroken.

They can’t do it. They don’t have the manpower or coverage.

I wish SF has the numbers to spawncamp our borderland. I’d rather fight over Cliffside anyday of the week, even if it’d be our only tower. Ever.

Back in my old days Cliffside was notorious for being the only thing Kaineng could reliably take thanks to glitchy catapults. And holding it for more than 5 minutes was a brutal feat of death and despair! And we enjoyed it!

You’re just sad on FC because SF can’t actually dedicate to anything. They just zerg and leave when they see another map starting to get taken because they don’t want to fight upgraded doors and walls, and they don’t have the numbers to cover all the maps to spawn(even though they claim they do). Now, they do have enough to cover EB and a Borderland… but not much more. In the old days, Ferg squashed Kaineng and Devona on every map!(Really old days, when FC and BP swapped spots in T8 every other week early on).

Respect is earned, not bought.

Anyone can buy a tag, yes. However, it takes respect for a server to follow that tag. If you’re worthy of the tag, the server’s loyalty will show you.

PS: Being a commander is not all fun and games. In fact, I wish more people had access to the tag, just so that I can take a break from my long WvW shifts sometimes. The bad commanders eventually just keep their tag off, not wanting to deal with the problems it brings them.

PPS: I am a commander of about 2-3 active people in my guild, but I command for the server’s sake(Eredon Terrace). When I put the tag up, the server’s needs come before mine. I can honestly say my server trusts me as a whole, so I am one of those ‘Commanders without a serious guild’. I avoid the major guilds to avoid guild drama so I can focus on WvW(Used to be the commander in a large guild). It pays off being outside the guild drama-ring sometimes.

I would like to mention that there used to be more EU and NA players on Kaineng…

…but the desires of War Machine and their paparazzi drove us away.

Reap what you sow, you’re doing fine in T2.

I think they did the elites great for Thieves(45, 90, and 180 second cooldowns). Conversely, I don’t see why the other classes didn’t get the same exact treatment with their elites, tweaking effects to be weakers or stronger depending on if the timer was lengthened or shortened.

It’s one thing to be upset that I was throwing flame rams upon your corpses.

But to start mortaring and trebbing my ram build sites afterwards?

I basically won Guild Wars 2 when you did that today, SF.

That mortar blew up a lot of nice Flame Ram Build Sites that peppered the battlefield.

PS: Enjoy the action shot of the mortar in-flight.

Get on my Siege Level, SF. I’ll get a pic up of what the treb’s on.

Just about every consumable that did stuff violently was removed.

But not my fireworks. And that makes me happy.

Only thing that lagged me was the Fire Elemental spawning. I did just about every world event yesterday for the chest.

That lag was scary intense I tell you what.

PS: Loot from Megadestroyer and Giant Wurm was terrible. Maybe just bad luck.

Bad salvage rate or not, dragon chest rares will bring the price down a bit.

I’ll be honest, when I was in a moderate size WvW guild(about 100+ people, 30+ active at a time), we made Influence rather fast. Fast enough to where once everything was researched, we could just rush buffs we pop so they’re ready to pop again without breaking a sweat.

A larger guild than that could easily get influence without spending money. But I bet some was spent.

Well, I’ve decided to bite the bullet and make Frenzy, so I’ll be getting a Gift of Water soon.

I’ll see if that has anything to do with the bow.

Adapt or perish.

Champions tend to kill bots.

It was not poorly executed. They even brought back Lyns on purpose so active people can dump off their commendations, with fair warning that she will be removed again.

Be grateful you got Lyns back for a second chance as it is. We didn’t get the Wintersday Vendor back.

I don’t mind the multiple currencies, but I hate the currencies that take up inventory space.

Make it so it doesn’t take up inventory space and you can make as many currencies as you want, Anet.

It was in the patch notes. Twice, I might add, if you take into consideration the FIRST time Lyns was removed.

War Banner is probably the most used because it gives you a great effect even after it’s down(Might, Fury and Swiftness in banner form for people around it).

I almost never see the others.

Make stealth a boon that can be stripped, and if stripped gives the revealed debuff as well.

That’s one way to bandaid-fix it.

Have a score update.

Agreed. Devs wouldn’t openly admit it since it’s one of those ‘Wow you’re dumb’ kind of bugs, but if they fix it, I won’t care.

Just need to make sure they take note.

Mango Pies are the way to go for now. They don’t rely on chance or have an internal cooldown to heal you everytime, even when dodging/kiting. Throw in a Maintenance Oil for all your crit needs.

I’ve seen Sigil of Blood working, but even with SoB and the changed pies, they have to increase numbers somewhere for me to do that. There is just too much burst to worry about that a 375 heal isn’t going to save me from.

Omnom Pies and Ghosts have a 1 or 2 second internal cooldown now. I used to love the pies on Thief Shortbow.

With the internal cooldown, the price is dropping like nuts. Sell your stock, or even your personal usage pile while you can still get 3 silver for them.

Now you could speculate on the pie fire sale too, but I’m not sure if this can rebound well. That’s a major negative change to a widely used food.

Time to switch to mango pies.

And buy some before people manipulate that.

Yeesh, if we can’t have a nice discussion about pies and who it effects because you want to invalidate the other classes without considering how the food works on them… then…

NEENER NEENER YOUR PIES GOT NERFED.

500mb? I’m at 830MB downloaded already and rising.

What gives.

Staff eles needed a change like this. Love for them over dagger eles is nice.

Hopefully camp claims with righteous indignation can still be hit with vulnerability. That’s the real way they die with the buff on, after all. Only works well with a zerg, but that’s always been fine by me.

The offerings? Seriously? They’re +6 to stats. That’s like saying get rid of infusions because some people don’t have them in their ascended gear and don’t feel like getting them and thus are playing at a +5 stat disadvantage.

Honor of the Waves is pretty quick. CM can also be fast with a good group.

TA isn’t fun with unexperienced people.

Alpha is a skill check. He can be soloed. It’s an L2P issue, I can’t put it in any other words.

PS: Mobs tend to aggro allies with a shield, and allies reviving even more. An ally with a shield reviving is asking for trouble and better be prepared for it.

PPS: Alpha’s health being lowered was a godsend to making the fight faster, and letting the better players possibly carry bad players through it when they die more easily and more quickly.

Did culling got worse?

Maybe. I seen culling got worse at large events and large zerg clashes in wvw, but culling did not got worse on small and medium scale in my opinion, though I do like seeing the placeholder models(which was a step in the right direction).

So depending on the player, maybe your culling did got worse.

Durian.5419:

where’s Kaineng

Hasn’t reached T1 yet. Has always been a T8 server until recently.

Hey, I can find the point on SBI’s line when War Machine abandoned them just by looking at the curve.

Alchemist.3692:

lol it might actually be more interesting if SF spec’d while ET and FC fought each other to see who comes out on top. I wouldn’t mind standing around watching this unfold

No no, we need The Flood to keep things dynamic and random for when we decide to thrash each other. Just do what you always do, we’ll find ways to hate each other around it.