Guild Wars 2

IoJ is one of the more interesting servers to watch now. I’ll be curious to see how they do.

Same thing every game.

“Thieves/Rogues are fine l2p.”
“Thieves/Rogues are so OP”
“Only GOOD Thieves/Rogues are any good”

“OMG I totally destroyed you while you were fighting someone else and I jumped you from stealth, then ran away, came back and beat you while your CDs were down.”

“I destroy all Thieves/Rogues everywhere none of them have ever even injured me. I beg you all to roll thieves and attack me en mass so I can build a cabin out of your rotting corpses.”

Thieves have the ability to leave and reset if they are losing. It’s something apparently every game feels like it has to include. Almost like a mini game.

7 large NA guilds from DB? But yeah last 48 hours NA guild(s) from servers other than DB came to SoS.

I think the post is fine it just suffered from expectations. I understand people should not have expected too much, but the tease and length of delay just amped everything up. I personally was expecting basically what i got, give or take a few features dependnig on how ANet prioritized it.

I’d like to see ETA’s on the arenas and especially on observer mode and streaming. I’m guessing this is a “before Christmas” type of timeframe. I would say getting the practice arena’s out is smart. Give people someplace to play and iterate their game plan while waiting for the rest of the stuff.

I like the backstabs at the end. Nice.

I’m curious what your build was, didnt notice you show it. Seemed fairly durable other than the thief ganks.

Ah I see we have more advocates of the “Dont hit people in PvP” discipline.

I definitely like the idea of a consolidation thread to hold the more standard builds out there for all the classes. No excuse not to try them yourself to learn what you’re up against.

Unfortunately it probably does need to be addressed. I say unfortunately because I shudder to think of Ranger without it

Someone plays Guardian….

Even if you wanted bunker to be the counter to a spike build, it would be by outlasting it not brain dead passive damage reflect. In most games I’ve played, you spike the healer/paladin down. Maybe they will elaborate on what the intention is.

Jon
bunker guardian has to much retal period. obviously. frankitteno much prot also. but that is not the heart of the matter. the core problem is real. because with it, bunker builds eliminate spike builds from the meta game. which in turn makes bunker builds OP. so the counter to them is beeing countered by them. aka balance problem. defensive builds are important, they help establish strategies. but they are als determining the entire meta right know.

Yeah I’m still reading this as spike builds counter bunker, but Retal counters spike so balance problem. Condition might be the way it’s played now out of necessity, I know that’s how I try and deal with Guardians, but only because a power shortbow build is so absurdly easy for a Guard to counter.

Condi vrs Guardian bunker should come down to skillful use of cleanses vrs application.

Spikes vrs Guardian bunker should come down to skillful use of Retaliation vrs burst. Problem is there is way too much Retaliation.

Mists and 3 in Lions Arch

The way I look at it is the Glass Cannon should get murdered by the well rounded player who puts some points in defense. I suppose we’re calling that sustained DPS. Bunker will outlast a sustained, since they can’t chew through his defenses quickly enough to take him down without help, but the bunker cant outlast the fully offensive cannon.

Animosity.5231:

Sustained DPS should counter bunkers. This allows the bunker to perform his role by stalling the enemy until his team arrives. Bunkers should counter burst. Blow CDs to burn someone down, blow CDs to counter it. Simple, effective. If burst counters bunkers, it becomes a fragfest.

This is where you lose me. You’re saying Sustained should counter bunker… but it still allows bunker to perform his role by stalling. So how exactly is he countered.

Random actually makes the most sense to me and that’s how it seems to work. LIFO is too easy to protect your important boons.

Good to hear, and related by Jon Peters:

http://www.reddit.com/r/Guildwars2/comments/10szrq/insight_from_jon_peters_and_karl_mclain_ingame_in/

how about paid tournaments first. then we can talk templates. how about ranking too and stuff. templates are coming. but only so many people working on it at a time

paid tournaments first. lets get that stable. then keep it roling. paid tournaments will split premades from pugs a bunch. which is imprtant. its also a feature that was done at ship. but now had some scalability bugs and fixing it requires some server rework. which is neede(d) for all other features anyway

Kimbald.2697:

To me retaliation seems like the perfect defense for a more damage orientated build.
Like: burst me down and it will hurt you. Wait till I wasted it and I’m dead meat… that sort of reasoning.
And not: burst me down and it will hurt you. Wait till I wasted it and you still won’t kill me…

Therein lies the issue though. You can’t wait til it’s wasted since it has a lot of uptime and it’s easy to get that uptime. It’s not like you’re dumping 30 points into some otherwise not very useful spec line for a trait. You’re picking up a Greatsword for 50% uptime. You can trait for it to trigger on CC, on using a Virtue, on Aegis end, trait to have each application last 25% longer. There’s a ton of utilities too with Retal on it. Save yourself, stand your ground… one of the Virtues. It’s not like I’m going to wait you out to burst.

Guardians have much better access to condition removal than my Ranger. I can accept if the Ranger just sucks at dealing with bunker Guardians, what I dislike is how brain dead they make it for them with the Retaliation.

How is steady DPS supposed to take down a class with tons of protection, healing, reflects and the rest? You’re supposed to overwhelm the bunker, who should not be able to hurt you very much as a cost of their spec. Not slowly whittle him down.

At least that’s my impression. Slowly killing them is not countering bunker.

Retaliation needs to be dealt with too but even if it is the Guardian is unquestioningly very powerful. Maybe not too powerful though.

Xeph.4513:

Quick question, apart from having retaliation toned down (which I completely agree with.) What other things do you want nerfed/removed, because as far as I’m concerned many classes have several ways to stop a stomp; as a mesmer I have 2 stuns, a daze, chaos storm (with some rng luck) and moa.
Engineer has (Flamethrower and Big bomb)
Elementalists (Updraft, Earthquake and Tornado)

The full hp aoe heal, is very easy to counter and the guardian can be cc’d to stop it; if he has popped stability than remove the condition using several different boon removals.

Guardians are strong, but they are not a god class and by no means do I find them overpowered; the only thing I wish for is a nerf to retal and everything else is currently in line.

I think this sums it up pretty well but I’d take issue with your characterization of stopping the AE heal as easy. A full AE heal in this game has to be one of the highest potential game changers in terms of a single ability. From your perspective as a Mesmer, boon stripping stability might seem trivial but I can assure you that a Ranger wont agree.

That’s really the essence of balance. Not just a class in a vacuum, it’s the power relative to the other classes. Now you can argue to tweak X and Y up rather than bring Z down and I’d agree depending on the details. I’d also say none of this is really over the top game breaking, but it’s also clear there are classes more equal than others.

If all classes could strip boons efficiently you’d have a big step towards fair and skillful balance I think. You’d still need to deal with the power or ease of uptime of Retaliation though.

Weapon swapping is one of those underutilized abilities in the game IMO. Even if you were only focused on one weapon, you should use 2 of that same weapon and swap them.

Longbow is boring and inferior to the Shortbow in almost every situation save for larger scale WvW fights and sieging where you need Barrage.

Give Longbow PBS a short KD component and I’d use it much more often. It also seems to miss FAR too often like almost every other bow skill. Faster projectiles too please, balance damage as needed just make the shots hit.

I wouldnt mind it as much if it stacked intensity and made it much less frequently used. It should be either a skillful reaction to burst or a very moderate nearly full time barrier.

Thanks Jon. A bit more diversity in the icons overall would be good. Allowing us to customize the color would be amazing… hint.

But really, just some distinction is all that’s needed. Regen, Swiftness and Might I think are the most easily recognizable. I can identify them out of the corner of my eye, others tend to blur together a bit. Retaliation is one I actively watch for on the bar so that’s the big one for me.

Judges.4527:

I would feel more reassure if I hadn’t just seen this…
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/pvp/pvp/Fury-and-Retaliation-Boon-icon-looks-too-similar/first#post219166

They apparently care more about giving us IMMEDIATE info icons that look too similar, but nothing on A WHOLE ENTIRE PORTION OF THE GAME.
I am extremely disappointed with ANET right now.

I think that’s the biggest issue in game personally! But really it is a simple fix and shouldnt impact other changes completion time.

As for the OP I agree with Seether they need to be a bit better at managing expectations. The post telling us something is in the works was good, but the impression was that it would be very soon. People just need to be reminded their concerns are being looked at and that it’s a priority (if in fact it is). ANet knows players get passionate about this stuff, people play this stuff for hours every day. Just give us an ETA.

“I simply think the real problem is people are not trying to learn and get better”

While I agree with this, would you not say that there are certain classes that require more practice and learning to deal with than others? This is a form of power in the early stages of a game and I’d argue an edge throughout.

A Warrior spining towards you with a giant sword screams “look out!” Whereas a Guardian with a tiny little icon on him and some glowy effects might leave you saying “what the hell is Retaliation?” when you’re dead from your own burst. Or learning what Mesmer clones and Phantasms do. Or how to deal with a Thief disappearing, stunning you or any of a number of things. Yes you can learn to deal with it but it’s still a higher level of skill needed than it is to say “Giant spinning Warrior, move” “Ranger shooting fast, dodge”

All that is on top of the actual class skills and abilities. I dont think there is any question some classes are a bit stronger than others atm, and that is exacerbated by the fact that they also require more knowledge and experience to deal with. At the same time some of the classes need a bit of love on a particular weapon or mechanic.

So yeah no class is outrageously overpowered. Yes people need to L2P but lets acknowledge some have situationaladvantages and some require more l2p than others.

Was there a Trebuchet involved?

Is it just me? Is it really necessary to have them be so close? At a glance it’s not always easy to tell which is which in the thick of things.

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Fury
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Retaliation

My black bear was “How about no”

!http://i3.kym-cdn.com/photos/images/newsfeed/000/129/577/How+About+No.jpg!

Yeah for the looks. But to be fair, they do look really good:

Anyone know if they fixed the broken skill points in Malchior’s Leap and Cursed Shore with this patch?

Ravengyre.1246:

For Armorsmithing:

• 2 Intricate Silk Insignia recipes (1344 karma or 672 karma each)
• 30 fine mats of each matching the two insignias (60 fine mats total)
• 12 Bolt of Silk (24 silk scraps)
• 8 Mithril Ingot (16 mithril ore)
• 44 Spool of Silk

Craft 2 Mithril Boot Casings, 2 Mithril Boot Linings, 2 Mithril Gaunlet Plates, 2 Mithril Gauntlet Linings then use the discovery pane to combine those with the insignas.
And then you are at 400 for that!

If you really want I can do the prices taking the cheapest of each from the TP if I straight up bought them (You should place orders for cheaper prices).

Eh I have the time I will!!

Prices are as of September 17, 2012 5.30 server time.

For Jeweler 375-400:

• 3 Glob of Ectoplasms = 72s15c @ 24s5c each
• 15 Crystals(Sapphire) = 16s65c @ 1s11c each
• 12 Mithril Ore = 2s76c @ 23c each
• 231 Karma

For Armorsmithing 375-400:

• 30 Large Fangs = Roughly 30s @ 1s each
• 30 Potent Venom Sacs = Roughly 38s40c @ 1s28c each
• 24 silk scraps = 6s72c @ 28c each
• 16 mithril ore = 3s68c @ 23c each
• 44 Spool of Silk = 24s @ 4s80c per 10 (6 left over)
• 1344 karma

So Jeweler vs Armorsmithing 375-400 total costs are:

Jeweler = 91s56c and 231 Karma

Armorsmithing = 1g2s80c and 1344 karma

So as you can see Jeweler 375-400 is not getting hosed, in fact it is roughly 11s and 1000 karma cheaper than Armorsmithing.

TL;DR??
Jeweler is about the same cost as Armorsmithing.

Cost to 400 fair enough. For that 1 gold you got 4 rares to wear or blow up for Ecto. JC get’s 1 item.

mulch.2586:

Everyone and their mother is already complaining that the market is flooded with crafted goods and making any profit is difficult. Making it easier to make stuff will only exasperate the problem.

Exacerbate. Increase the severity.

But yeah it’s fine. I got my 400 JC with little hassle. Crafting a full set of rare jewelry isnt going to happen right away for most people though, and probably isnt worth bothering to do. Leatherworking I made myself multiple sets of rares right away for little cost (relatively).

Was still not working as of yesterday. I havent checked yet today.

Yes Piercing Arrows is what you want. It turns all your attacks into straight line (small cone) AE. Coupled with Quickening Zephyr and it’s very good burst but not wide area. Barrage is the big area effect skill. 30 Second cooldown, 24 seconds with Quick Draw trait in Skirmishing.

It is a bit confusing at this stage but I believe we’ll get a much better feel for it over time. Going in I tried to identify what were the real abilities I had to spend my dodge/evade on. Initially (and for the most part STILL) I was intuition dodging. “THAT certainly looks dangerous!”

Now it’s getting to be a matter of what to do in specific situations. Meaning I know what Heartseeker looks like, but they can do so many of them I need to figure out the best way to deal with it.

turboether.2643:

Jewelers don’t need fine mats for any of their crafts from 1-400. It is a craft that is good for any and all professions and levels This is a huge enough advantage in and of itself.

Why? I can gather a ton of fine mats by farming for an hour or so. Far more than I can get in gems.

“For those saying Jeweler is the cheapest to level, take another look at how much those jewels vend for, and then another look at the trading post. While other professions need to spend some silver on thread and the ilk, Jeweler “spends” silver by not selling the gems. This and Jeweler requires a lot of ore in comparison to the other crafting professions.”

Yes I was going to say, I checked the Trading Post last night for the Rubys to make rares and they are upwards of 7 silver each. You need 15 for each item, that’s on top of the 3 Ectos. So for Ruby items at least it’s close to 2 gold per in value per slot.

We really need a Moa or Bird with on demand swiftness so we can have a substitute for Warhorn 5.

Good video.

As far as Lynx or birds they are about even as far as I have seen. Eagle and Raven are good substitutes for a Lynx and hit very hard. Lynx does a bit more over time. Birds will also give you a swiftness boon in their rotation as opposed to the Feline Vulnerabilty condition. The swiftness is nice for kiting.

AXLORD.2045:

You forgot that to level up Leatherworking or Armorsmith until that point you need litterally hundreds of fine crafting mats, only dropped by mobs, and which cost from 1 silver to 20 silver per unit, whereas the only thing you need in Jewelcrafting until then is dust. You may have a hard time leveling the last 20 levels to 400, but other armor/weapon crafting professions require way more time and gold to get to 300 (and even higher).

I leveled up Leathworking and Jewelcrafting to 400. Both were similar to 400 in my opinion. The fine crafting mats drop pretty well in my experience. I had 88 of the bloods I needed for rares in LW without even trying for them specifically. Bones too. Fangs and totems I had none of but I would guess there are good farming spots for those.

Ectos on the other hand and gems are a pita for me to get. But really it’s all about market prices. 15 bloods or bones @ 1-1.5 silver each compared to 3 Globs of Ectoplasm @ ~20 silver each is a big difference.

Maybe they did it because Jewelcrafters cater to everyone as opposed to LW or AC who mostly make things for a certain few professions?

I had a couple drop for me last night, was wondering what they were. They dropped off of… uh… geez I forget the name of the mobs now. Grawls. The monkey things. Southwest of the hill where Jormag event is in Frostgorge. Decent sized camp of them there.

Here is a random Rare Quality item from Leatherworking:
Rampager’s Noble Boots
http://www.guildhead.com/recipe/793206/rampagers-noble-boots

Rampager’s Intricate Silk Insignia[s] (1)
Thick Boot Sole[s] (2)
Thick Boot Upper[s] (1)

Boot upper and sole cost a few leather and some vendor bought silk spools.
Rampager’s Intricate Silk Insignia[s]
Ingredients:
Potent Venom Sac[s] (15)
Spool[s] of Silk Thread (10)
Bolt[s] of Silk (2)

I want to say the potent venom sacs are maybe 1.2 silver on TP. So roughly the cost of 1 Ecto for the 15 venoms. I’m not in game so I cant check that, but I want to say 2 silver each tops.

Random Rare Jewelcrafter item:

Ruby Mithril Amulet
http://www.guildhead.com/recipe/810205/ruby-mithril-amulet

Mithril Setting[s] (1)
Mithril Chain[s] (1)
Embellished Brilliant Ruby Jewel[s] (3)

Each Embellished Ruby Jewel requires:

Glob[s] of Ectoplasm (1)
Mithril Filigree[s] (1)
Ruby Crystal[s] (5)

So leatherworker big money items: 15 Potent Venom Sacs/Bloods/Fangs whatever: 20-30 silver depending on fine component.
Jewelcrafter: 3 ectos, 15 crystals – roughly 80 silver depending on which crystals.

I feel like you can overkill Precision. It’s certainly important to have a high crit rate but when you consider the amount of sources we can get Fury (20% crit chance) then in my mind it becomes less important at some level. No I dont know what that level is

So i prioritize Crit Damage > Power > Precision until the smart math people tell me otherwise. This is assuming you have at least 15 points in Skirmishing and/or Warhorn 5 and/or Rampage as One and/or Red Moa pet etc.

Amulrei.4973:

There are three problems with that.

Good post here. I agree with all points. Even if we did move to a low pop server, again if one exists? .. As Mike seems to confirm, the better the servers do the bigger the queues will be.

I would hate to move from HoD since I agree a lot of the non TA guilds (militia!) have been fantastic. Helpful, disciplined, effective. This is not to mention we’d start out with a low ranking again and lose guild influence gains (I think?) So moving forces us to lose a lot, and once we do, what’s to stop it from happening again?

I just wanted to say I appreciate that this is a difficult issue. There are a lot of things you can do, but none of them are really ideal and all have trade offs. I would say that fixing the queue needs to be a high priority, a queue number and estimated wait time is also a very good idea.

I’d love to see an overflow map for WvW that does not effect ranking points but would at least allow for us to do something while we wait.

Thanks for posting this.