Guild Wars 2

Alex.9268:

It is completely ridiculous now. Lineage2 5 years ago was crisper than this mess.

By 5 years ago, you mean 9 years ago… D=

Glad (wait should I be glad?) to know that my guildmates and I aren’t the only ones that feel like culling has gotten worse overall…

Better: 23%
Worse: 67%
Same: 10%
Total votes: 226

And I agree with Oozo – why do we have to suffer through a worse system, when it’s obviously not ready nor improving the issue? Why can’t they wait until it’s complete and all ironed-out before release?

After playing for a few days now with the update, I’ll have to agree with the others and say culling is definitely worse.

It was noticable before, but it was tolerable because zergs usually loaded far enough away (1500-1800+ range) for me to react appropriately. Ever since the patch, I’ve run into supply camps on multiple occassions, seeing only 2 or 3 guys, and end up having an entire zerg suddenly appear right in front of my face (sometimes it’s people from my own server). I never had much issue with loading allied players before, but I notice it now. Stealthed players reloading in seem to take just as long as before to load. Overall, rather than seeing an improvement, it has definitely gotten worse for me.

To those that say it’s a hardware issue: well I run an i5 3570K @ 4.4 Ghz, GTX 670 (OC’ed), 16 GB RAM (1866), and the game is installed on a Samsung 840 SSD. All updated drivers.

My friends have similar builds (one has almost the exact same setup as me, except he uses a 660 TI, 8 GB RAM, game is installed on a WD Black HDD [WD2002FAEX], and none of his hardware is overclocked), and they’ve been experiencing similar results as well.

So unless there’s some compatibility with Nvidia GPUs and/or Intel CPUs or we now need to buy another video card and SLI them, I don’t think it’s a hardware issue. And like I said, I didn’t really notice the culling issues until the recent patch (though I’ve heard an ear full from some of my friends with slightly dated rigs) .

Thank you for this awesome strat! After getting tired of failing within the first 4 rounds in a few pubs, I tried this out and it worked perfectly. Managed to beat it in the first try with 3 dolyaks still alive (2 of them died during the first round)=D

You’re right – it is extremely pub friendly. I didn’t even tell anyone about what i was doing, and one of my teammates noticed what i was doing and started spamming them, too. Some of my teammates were kittening about us wasting scraps/snow, but after a couple of rounds passed by, they stopped. =P

I can see why this strat works so well. Mobs get distracted by all of the targets littered across the map, so they stay away from the dolyaks in the middle, while getting hammered by AoE catapults from every direction. On top of that, you don’t waste time hauling siege to the middle, so you can maximize the output of available siege weapons, while trees/buildings respawn.

han.9042:

Fenghoang.3804:

han.9042:

I’m guessing they did that so people cannot go in with only guild members and using things like teamspeak and have a huge advantage over PUGS (pick up groups) They want to make it fair for everyone.

This line of thinking is absolutely brilliant! Lets do the same with sPvP and tPvP! I mean, who plays multiplayer games with friends… am I right?!

No wait… it sounds as good of an idea as ramming my face through a brick wall.

I guess you have not played BG in WoW. When PUGS vs. organized guild group using teamspeaks, PUGS just stood in their base and let them win. They just want to lose quick and get their token. Losing quickly yields more tokens in the long run.

Same thing will happen here. I guarantee you there will be a lot of complains from casual players or people not in a guild if they allow that to happen. ANet did a smart move and made it fair for every player.

I actually did. To a certain degree, I agree that you have a point with pubstompers – they aren’t fun if you are on the losing end. It affects every team vs team game, from CS to DoTA to BGs in WoW.

But the thing is, the current solution isn’t a good one. Many (most?) people play multiplayer games to play with their friends. Not letting people do so, is utterly stupid. MOBA and strategy games utilize a simple matchmaking system to alleviate pubstomping, and that’s the correct solution to this issue IMO. Matchup arranged teams with other arranged teams and fill out the empty slots if necessary. But since these events are merely temporary, they don’t even need to go through the hassle of a ranking system. Hell, why can’t they just use the sPvP system for these events? They work just fine.

I mean seriously? You guys really think being prohibited from playing with your friends is a good idea? I honestly can’t believe people are defending this idea… Do you guys not have any friends/guildmates to play with or what? I thought these little fun events are meant to be spent with friends – you know sharing the experience and all?

I would’ve thought Anet learned this from the outcry during the first BWE and the first few days of release, when people couldn’t join each others’ overflows. And here i thought MMOs were a good way to enjoy a game with people you know, instead of being essentially a singleplayer game.

I personally love the event, but man, it sure as hell feels lonely and gets boring quick playing with strangers that hardly even speak…

han.9042:

I’m guessing they did that so people cannot go in with only guild members and using things like teamspeak and have a huge advantage over PUGS (pick up groups) They want to make it fair for everyone.

This line of thinking is absolutely brilliant! Lets do the same with sPvP and tPvP! I mean, who plays multiplayer games with friends… am I right?!

No wait… it sounds as good of an idea as ramming my face through a brick wall.

Go to old Lion Statue.
Look up.

omgwtflolbbl.7142:

Did you know combos were once unintended and a gimmick/easter egg in fighting games? Once they were discovered and started to be heavily utilized because of what you could do with them, maybe they should have scrapped any ability to do so. Instead, they were built upon once game developers saw how much people enjoyed them, and now they’re an essential and fun part of pretty much any fighter.

Since you mentioned combos, animation cancelling was originally an unintentional “exploit” that became one of the defining game mechanics found in practically all fighting games afterwards. Combos wouldn’t be nearly as complex without them. It isn’t exclusive to fighting games either, but also MOBA and strategy games like DoTA (orbwalking). This unintentional game mechanic opened up windows for more complex gameplay.

That’s how I see EA. Sure, they need to tone down the repeat blast finishers with a CD, but total removal of the mechanic is overdoing it and a waste IMO.

There’s nothing more i can say that hasn’t been said already, but I just wanted to add my opinion as well.

I’m sure most of us were expecting a nerf, because having a blast finisher on every dodge seemed unintended and possibly exploitable. You can potentially stack up heals, etc. much faster than intended, but still, I never felt it was overly OP. Like others have mentioned, you must sacrifice survivability in order to gain these boons, and that in itself, balances out the trait. It’s a risk vs reward decision that players have to commit to.

But to have blasts be removed completely was going WAY too far. Including a 10s CD per attunement like how each of the skill procs per attunement is a much more reasonable and expected nerf. Removing it completely simplifies and severely nerfs playstyles (for all weapon combinations, including Staff), and it’s the reason why there’s such an uproar. It makes the playstyle we’ve chosen less fun, because it’s removing a viable tactic.

Not to mention, the skill itself felt very poorly balanced in usefulness/power between attunements. For a 30 pt trait, dodges in Fire and Earth are pathetically weak. Their PBAOE radius is way too small to hit anything if you’re dodging away, and even if you do, it does paltry damage (less than your autoattack even). The only two good attunement dodges are in Air and Water. Even in Water, the heal amount is equivalent to the 15 pt minor trait (Healing Ripple) in the water tree, except with the addition of a condition removal (though you do have to sacrifice endurance for it unlike Healing Ripple).

I’m personally a D/D Ele, but I’ve already felt like it was a huge blow. I really pity Staff users who used EA as a major part of their build, because the nerf undoubtedly hit them harder. I’m assuming the nerf was intended to hit bunker builds in sPvP, but the end result was it crippled all types of players in both PvE and PvP. To add insult to injury, other class bunker builds were, for the most part, barely touched in this patch.

Rain King.5914:

I believe energy sigils were recently nerfed to 25%. Just putting it out there.

That is incorrect. The nerf only affected the MAJOR sigils, which previously had 50% like the Superior ones.

Morthur.3894:

Fenghoang.3804:

That requires too much effort for me… XD

^this basically sums up the Ele class very nicely (in every aspect, not just maintaining some crappy swiftness buff that half the other classes can do with 1 or 2 key strokes every 30-60 seconds).

Well… that may be true in a lot of cases, but Elementalists easily have the MOST options for permaswiftness, and most of them are quite easy to maintain, too. Just look at all of the options provided in this thread. Some of other classes can’t even maintain permaswiftness without the Rune of the Centaur (hell some can’t even with it…). Others have to spec for it or forced to use a certain weapon set.

And I still standby what i said about using Updraft… but you guys are right, it is a viable option. I just prefer to save it for my combo. That and when I’m trying to cover a ton of distance, i just like to relax and use autorun and a few key taps to maintain swiftness. Fights are already a finger twister game, so i like the relaxing downtime when I’m just trying to get from A to B.

Angel.1435:

@Fenghoang – Just rotate your camera 180 degrees quickly and pop it and you will jump forward instead. It’s handy when using it as you’re coming out of RTL, rotate the camera while travelling and then pop it when RTL is ending. but it’s not needed when using Zephyr’s Boon

That requires too much effort for me… XD

Hey when I’m trying to get from A to B, I like putting in the least effort as possible… Besides, like i said, I think Updraft is pretty important part in your spell combo.

You can use Boon Duration runes (2x Superior Water & Monk + 2 Major Water or Monk), 30 pts in Arcane Tree (with Elemental Attunement trait), and 10 pts in Lightning Tree (for Zephyr’s Boon). Each time you swap to Lightning, you get 8s of Swiftness by itself (you can attune every 9s with 30 pts in Arcane). Top that off with Shocking Aura (17s of Swiftness) and you’re easily perma-swifted. You can throw in Frost Aura (8s of Swiftness) too if you want, though it’s not really necessary.

Or you can just use Rune of the Centaur. It provides 10s base swiftness on heal that is effected by all Boon Duration buffs, as well as the +20% swiftness duration boost from its 4 pc set bonus.

I personally never use Updraft just to maintain my swiftness while roaming. It slows you down, since you evade backwards, and you could really use it for part of your spell combo.

Weapon X.5163:

Bleeds.4029:

@Weapon X – evasive arcana does the same thing with D/D that it does with a staff or any other weapon.

For example, in three moves I can heal myself three (technically four) times. One, swap to water (healing ripple heals you and nearby allies) and regen starts. Two, cast cleansing wave (heal and condition removal), Three, dodge one time (evasive arcana grants a second cleansing wave).

In four moves, I can add a fourth heal by using cone of cold. Doesn’t matter if I target something or not.

That’s a lot of healing in seconds.

Umm….ok. The OP is using D/D. So tell me how he would drop a water field again?
Hinse my question.

If he drops the 10 points from Arcana he loses 1 possible 2 might blast finishers while in fire and 1 1/4 second attune C/D. Thats it, unless he is specing into crit for the 25 point trait (Arcane Presision)….which i doubt.

Those 10 points would be better spent in water for cond. removal or earth for some type of passive damage redux. Or start using staff.

I’m tired of bads that cant read giving advise.

Perhaps you should try to read yourself before you start bashing people.

I’m not sure if you just don’t understand how Evasive Arcana works or not, but Bleeds explicitly said how he can heal 4x in 4 moves in his post. 1. Swapping to Water Attunement heals you once via Healing Ripple (15 pts in Water Tree), 2. using Cleansing Wave (D/D Skill 5), 3. dodge in Water Attunement to heal (Evasive Arcana in Water Attunement provides a Cleansing Wave), and 4. use Cone of Cold (D/D Skill 2).

I don’t see anywhere in his post that he mentions using a water field or need one for that matter. Two of those heals come from Cleansing Wave (one from D/D 5 and the other from dodging) and those each heal and remove a condition. Perhaps you were confused with his wording about EA’s effectiveness with D/D compared to other weapon sets? If so, then yes, you are right in that it’s not as effective for Healing using a staff, but it still have a lot of other merits.

As to why use EA with D/D? Well, you can easily stack 16-25 stacks of might if you use Boon Duration runes, 30 in Arcane Tree, and Sigil of Battle. D/D still has access to two fire fields and two blast finishers (3 if u use Arcane Wave – which is pretty popular with D/D builds). If you go for a tanky build (like 0/10/0/30/30 with PVT+Cleric gear), you can easily make up for the loss of power/CD with those might stacks (they each last 34 secs with Boon Duration), and yet still maintain incredible survivability. You can easily get up to 18-20 stacks within your first rotation if you use 1 dodge, Arcane Wave, Earthquake, and Churning Earth. I usually swap into Earth mid dodge after casting Ring of Fire to get the Churning Earth blast finisher to get both the might stacks as well as crippling my targets, then continue the blast chain with AW, EQ, and CE (yes you can get all of this off with just the duration of one Ring o Fire – hell you can even fit in a Ring of Earth in there too). You can maintain perma-Vigor pretty easily with Arcane Trait VI and Water Trait III, so it’s not like you’re wasting precious endurance either.

On top of that, evades in Earth provides a useful cripple, evades in Lightning provides a blind (nice for stomping, for example, considering D/D don’t have any), and evades in Water heals (~2K with 600-700 Healing Power) and removes a condition. I’ll say that’s pretty kitten useful.