Guild Wars 2

Although the crying became a lot quieter over the last couple of month. I unterstand the complains of many non-raiders and came up with a solution that should provide an easier way in for new players and also provide new opportunities for veterans to compete. all without devaluing “real” raids i even came up with a little lore loophole to explain it all.
so here we go:

Taimi and Moto installed the latest version of there vr-training chamber in the lions arch aerodrome. With this technology it’s possible to simulate all raid encounters on three varying difficulty levels. Squats will be able to open any encounter they could open normally, as well as every encounter they have already cleared during the current week but the exploitable space will be limited to the area of the selected encounter.

This simulation is for training purposes only! Don’t expect anything, within the virtual environment, to drop loot of any kind.

However, the Guild Initiative is offering to support squats, that complete this challenge in the appropriate time, with useful raiding supplies and the fastes of groups, on the new aerodrome leaderboard, will even be rewarded with exclusive prices like special guild hall decorations or titles.

So there you go, a way for “noobs” to practice boss mechanics and a better way for hardcore and speedrun guilds to compare there times without having to post a full youtube video. Buff food rewards can be account bound and limited to once per week. This is not supposed to be a farm, it’s just an idea to bring food prices down a little and make raiding more affordable for beginning players (who will wipe a lot), but i consider this part strictly optional.[/i]

Can you dig kitten with a spoon? Sure, but you’r probably better of just using a shovel. But let’s just see what will change with the expansion, if anything.

Edit: What’s up with the censor? I was just typing “a” and “hole” and the filter thinks i’m trying to insult someone

As usual most ideas here are waaaay out there and would make necro just overpowered, so that’s never gonna happen. I want my Main to be useful in group play as well but slapping ridiculous modifiers onto it isn’t the solution. As some pointed out, the problem lays with the core specs, especially bloodmagic, not in reaper. So here are a few ideas i belief to be a bit more responsabel.

Vampiric
Reduce the base values for damage and healing and significantly increase power and healing power scaling.

Vampiric Presence
“Your nearby alleys gain Vampiric” (based on your stats). No more extra layer of life leach on top.

Vampiric Rituals
“…allies standing in your wells siphon health”. remove health siphoning per puls.

Last Rites
“allies near you do not bleed out while downed and gain Healing Power based on their current health.”

and as a bonus
Parasitic Contagion
Damaging conditions siphon health. Life siphoning scales from condition damage instead of power.

The rest would just be value tweaking which i want get into because it requires a lot of play testing that i can not conduct, for obvious reasons. Also there might be engine limitations to some of this suggestions, but then, when aren’t there?

Tobias.8632:

Nothing you have described is a rework, just a buff. It’s already the most unique, interesting, and powerful pvp weapon in the game so I doubt that will happen. It already works great with power/condi hybrid gear, what is what viper gear is, and that’s the current meta though nobody uses staff in pve because the only thing that matters in pve is dps output.

To me a rework doesn’t mean completely gutting the original purpose of something but rather making it more suitable for the current state of the “meta”. Most of my suggestions don’t have to be a flat out buff and can be done damage neutral. My main goal was to make staff a viable support weapon, whiteout completely tanking your personal DPS by using it. My understanding of pvp/wvw is that the only reasons people still run staff the very powerful personal condi cleanse on skill 4 and maybe a bit of long range AOE chill on skill 3. But what makes you think of staff as a hybrid weapon? The power scaling is just awful.

mazut.4296:

I seriously think Scourge should have some way of destroying existing shades to replace them faster, where they are needed. Its pretty clunky in an action game with constant movement and dodges.

I get what you mean but resource and therefore shade management is part of this specs gameplay. Maybe a functionality like this could be rolled into Serpent Siphon which feels quite at the moment anyway.

Justine.6351:

Staff so bad that wayyyy too many Necromancers use it.

100% projectile finisher, fine
Remove regen for 1.5k barrier, fine

Rest just no.

1200 range on-point aoe attacks don’t need to be improved/buffed.

1.5k is a lot more then i had on mind. I was thinking more along the lines of 500 to maybe 1k, with a ton of healing power. It’s “only” a 4.75sec. CD after all. Which is weird anyway and just leftover from when the CD reduction trait got rolled into baseline. It should really just be a full 5sec.

I agree with the radius increase for Sand Flare and the range increase for Sand Swell but the rest sounds just ridiculously OP.

The change for Harrowing Wave and Dessicate are at least going in the right direction but your LF values just way to high.

Ghastly Breach would be to strong as an aura considering that Sand Shroud already is one, but changing it to a low range (shorter then wells) ground target, so you can better place it onto a node, whiteout having to stand in the center yourself, would be great.

And the whole barrier discussion here and anywhere is just short sided. Barrier is not just “the think that replaces necro shroud” it’s a new gameplay mechanic and we are NOT the only once getting access to it.

Drarnor Kunoram.5180:

I think Scourge Barriers need some numbers buffs (especially to the base value), but I don’t think the decay rate is really that impactful. I don’t actually see them decay much during gameplay.

Who ever thinks it decays to fast you just pressed the button to early. It’s that simpel.

Drarnor Kunoram.5180:

Unyielding Blast applies Vulnerability multiple times if shades overlap in area. Dhuumfire does not apply Burning multiple times in this same situation.

One of these two is a bug.

I can confirm this. The Unyielding Blast is the buggy one. In the most recent guild chat the devs sad they didn’t want players to just stack shades on top of each other, so they can only hit a singel target once.

Same here. All of this sounds reasonable. Maybe a bit too reaper oriented (a little torment somewhere could make the staff viable for both spec’), but pretty good otherwise.

[/quote]
I mentioned changing the position of skill 3 to torment. The two conditions fit to each other better anyway. “you move slower and it hurts when try”.

Muchacho.2390:

Mhh ich like most of those changes but you changes to putrid mark sound alot like it was in the past so i doubt Anet would revert that nerf.

i can’t remember the skill ever functioning this way but i heard it from several people now so i guess it’s true. I would just like to know what the reasoning behind this change was. When i don’t remember it happening it must have been before the condition limit got raised, so maybe it had tactical reasons, which might be resolved by now, and then they simply forgot about it.

Patrick.2987:

dhuumfire in the tooltip says on f1 every time your shades attack which is on any f skill you and ur shades strike with 1 torment and 1 burn from dhuumfire. However it only procs the burn on shade and not on you the torment however works.

I see how i get confused on that but what the F1 skill is trying to say is that when ever you use a shade skill it will trigger its “auto attack”, so to say and this attack is the one you see in the tooltip and the one dhuumfire gets added to but this one will not puls on you. maybe the description needs to get reworked to clarify this. That’s the case for a lot of the new skill/trait interactions btw.

Patrick.2987:

Dhuumfire is rly bugged, it pulses on f5 only on shade, not on yourself as intended.

Why would it be intended that Dhuumfire pulses on you as well? It clearly says “shroud skill 1” which is your shade and not you. And to everyone saying it shouldn’t puls at all on f5, i don’t think your right. it is supposed to trigger whenever a shade pulses and they showed it of working like this in the latest guild chat.

mazut.4296:

Serpent Siphon. Doenst grant barrier and its weak skill overall.

this is mostly a description error. the skill creates a “pick up” in the area around its targets that grants barrier. kinda like engi med kits or ventari/staff rev orbs. but unlike those this once a VERY hard to see which might be the actual bug or just “bad design”, no offence.

Dhuumfire and Unyielding blast proc with all the shroud skills. Very strong on skill 5 that pulses 7 times. not to mention the other 4 can instant cast. Reks the lord and company on legacy.[/quote]

“necro does damage… must be a bug.”

mazut.4296:

Good catch, but I still think its better to have good LF gain then larger LF pool.

I feel like you didn’t get what he was saying. Larger LF pool, EQUALS larger LF gain, because you always get a percentage of you maximum. 1% of 20k is more then 1% of 15k.

Giving the attack speed of dagger auto, torment is just way to strong of a condition to put on it in any PvP scenario and don’t even get me started on the ridiculousness that Demonic Lore would become. Plus, bleed just fits it a lot better thematically.

So all it needs now is a gear set with Condition Damage/Vitality major, Expertise/Healing Power minor.

As the titel says i feel like staff got left behind in a lot of rearguards and needs an update. So here are some of my ideas to improve staff and turn it into the condi based support weapon it always wanted to be.

Skill 1 – Necrotic Grasp
This Attack just feels very slow also it doesn’t fit the condition theme, that the rest of the Staff skills have, and only does very little power based damage. While it is a piercing projectile, that generates life force, this does not compensate for the very slow attack speed.

My suggestion: Make it be a guarantied Projectile finisher instand of just 20%. “Hammer Bolt” on Revenant Hammer already functions this way and has about the same attack speed and range. This would increase DPS as well as group support by reliably triggering combo fields.

“Skill 2 – Mark of Blood
A while back, when several staff traits became baseline, this Skill has been nerfed from 3 to 2 Stacks of bleed (in PvE) but it remains the main damage skill on staff. 2ndly the regeneration on this skill is just boring and ineffective as group support.

My suggestion: Revert the nerf for PvE and replace the regeneration with either a direct heal or, now that that’s a think ,… with barrier. If this turns out to be to powerfull for “Mark of Evasion”, just change the trait to “Minor Mark of Evasion” and have it cast the old version of the skill.

Skill 3 – Chilblains
Overall descent. Great synergy with Bitter Chill and Deathly Chill but the combo field Poisson is lackluster and It’s CD is a bit to high for the payoff.

My suggestion: Change the combo field to “Ice”. This not only fits better thematically, hints the name “CHILblain”, but also gives the skill even better damage potential for combos with Bitter Chill, Deathly Chill and the “new” Necrotic Grasp (see above) and it lets you use the blast finisher, on skill 4, to blast a frost aura, which is better group support on bossed that are not effected by weakness, plus weakness is not that hard to come by anyway. Also changing this skills poison, the combo field of which would be gone anyway, to torment, would improve synergy with the upcoming new elite spec and compensate for the fact that scourge wan’t have access to the Deathly Chill synergy.

Skill 4 – Putrid Mark
Great skill and probably the only think that keeps staff still in use by most people. The only problem i see is that this skill is to selfish for a support weapon.

My suggestion: Change it to transfer conditions from yourself and allies in the target area to enemy’s in the target. The numbers might requiter a bit of tweaking to work well in large groups (WvW).

Skill 5 – Reaper’s Mark
This skill will always fear it’s targets away from the caster, leading it to push apart enemy groups in PvE.

My suggestion: Have this skills fear effect originate from the center of the mark, just like it is the case with the sand shades when using the F4 ability on scourge. This way it would be possible to steer enemy’s into a certain direction, like into an AOE, back towards you or down a cliff, all without having to reposition yourself before.

That endet up being a way bigger wall of text then i anticipated.

Anyway. tl;dr: buff staff plox.

better yet, add condis to Quickening Thirst. There is little to no reason to ever pick this trait no matter how many daggers you wield. Something like.

“Increases movement speed while wielding a dagger. Dagger skills recharge faster and apply bleeding if activated while above the health threshold.” Done.

Guys, pleas, think about it for a minute no barrier decay in combat would be insane. Raid party’s would simply run around 10k extra health all the time because you CAN’T get out of combat in raids. the most i would give it is 1 max. 2sec. before it starts to decay or slow the decay speed by like 10%. Don’t think of barrier like a replacement for shroud, its more like a poor man’s dodge or distort and while it won’t block CCs you get much more frequent access to it. It just raises the skill level for necro above meshing you “oh crap” button when ever you take damage.

I tested Scourge a bit and i like it so far but i noticed that Reaper’s Might, the first minor in the Spite line, only grants might to yourself when placing the shade anywhere. I feel like it should rather grant might to allies, standing in the area, it gets placed in. I know that having it puls of activation of other f-skills, like Dhuumfire does, “might” (pun intended) be OP, especially for the f5, but maybe it will be ok if it only activates when allies are really effected by a shade skill, like f2 actually removing a condition or f3 grating barrier. In this case placing f1 would also only grad might to allies when you trait it with Desert Empowerment.

Anyway, bottom line is: There should be a way for Reaper’s Might to grant might to allies as well. This is suppose to be a support spec after all, also i see very little synergy with Scourge and the Spite line at the moment.

I have not experienced this issue so far and i’m usually quit sensitive towards motion sickness. Are you Guys sure you Problems aren’t caused by low frame rates? i have severe FPS drops arounkitten oon and moving fast on a mount emphasizes this by a lot.

I admit it takes a bit of time to get used to the feel of mounts but overall i like the fact it’s less direct and more like riding a different entity, rater then just “transforming” into it your self. My only request wound be, can we pls get /sit on mounts (or at least the raptor)? i noticed that the animation for this is already in game as part of the idle animation, so all it needs is a way for us to trigger it manual. PEEEEEEEEEEASE!

Ok, I believe is see the intention for the changes. It,s too bring druid in line with other healing builds such as ventari heal rev or aura share ele. Right now druid is the by far most wanted class in LFG, no wonder, since its the only viable healer, but arenanet never wanted to make a game were people have to wait 30min. and more for the right class.

As for the boon duration nerf, i’ve seen that coming for a long time. 50% is kind’a ridiculous tbh, that’s a full commanders gear worth of boon duration, basically for free.

this also ties into the quickness nerf a lot. quickness is the most powerfull DPS boon in game, making chrono to much of a stapele for every group.

overall i belief the changes are made to switch the focus in raids from team comp to build setup and i think that, specialty with legendary armor, and hopefully build saving, coming up, it is the ultimate goal that, a couple of elite specs down the line, every class… pardon “profession” can take every roll in a raid and do just fine.

Lascax.2163:

Parallel Universes. I’m not joking.

That would explain a lot of what was going on with Auris as well. What if the Rifts are not just moving someone through space but also (through the mists) to a alternate reality? And now let’s grab our tinfoil heads for a second, what if our REAL world is just another reality in the mists, that once upon a time, had magic in it but is was all consumed buy elder dragons. O.o

mindblown

Lower cast time would just make everyone pop it instantly an only use it as a poor mans blink. I have a much more flavorful suggestion:
How about removing the LoS check on for “necrotic traversal” and setting the range to 10k? Like that it would become sort of a “1-man-mesmer-portal”. That means you can leave it behind in a strategical spot to quickly port back there. For counterplay someone could obviously just kill the wurm or maybe even baiting you into porting and ganking you. Also it would give the skill a little “wormhole” flavor.

Not necessary QoL but anyway. It would be nice if we could salvage ascended gear with a black lions kit. I know many veterans, including myself, have a stockpile of them in the bank, but with most exotics these days it’s not even worth using it them on, because the upgrade in it is just worth a few silver or not even existing. Since salviging an ascended item effectively costs 1g and stabilizing matrices are quiet expensive, we would finally have a use for them again. Also it just doesn’t really make sense that the “top-tier-cash-shop-kit” isn’t able to do that, and who knows, maybe it will even get a few people to actually buy this things, i mean has anyone ever done that?

also +1 on the salvageable rune/signet suggestion.

And then for the guild ui it would be nice if it would not just show that a guild mate is in the fractals of the mist, but also wich scale he is playing so that you know if you could play it together.

oh, and i got one for the forum as well.
how about if you reading a topic and log in to reply to it it takes you right back the the topic you where reading an not to the main page ;-)

Another option could be to turn blocking time frames into stacking and ticking aegis. So basically warrior shield 5 will no longer blocks everything for 3 seconds, which is practically equivalent too 3 second of invulnerability, instead it grands X stacks of aegis every X seconds. This way fast attacking skills, like ranger longbow 2 or warrior greatsword 2 can partially pierce through it or help to set up a well timed interrupt. The second counterplay option would obviously be boonstrip. Of course this change might require small tweaks to some of the guardian traits . Projectile only- and onetime-blocks can remain unchanged for now.

I think that there is nothing wrong with stronghold being a “PvP for PvElers”, to be honest, that is what brought me into PvP in the first place, also i thing that it has a lot more room for tactical depth then the “run-around-and-stand-in-circles-mode” called conquest. That being set, exactly this " tactical depth" isn’t really there at the moment because who ever gets the better rush, at the start, usually wins and most of the time this comes down to who ever has more/the better heal ele. now my major pain points and suggestions to fix them would be:

1. Archers are currently useless because Players are way faserter and more efficient in killing guards.

Fix: Buff guards so that players can no longer just cleave them down while fighting a player at the gate. Let them 1-hit doorbreakers while they them self get 1-2-hit by archers like this attackers have 2 sets of NPCs to protect. This will break up the “5 breakers 1 healer meta”.

2. Supply respawns to quickly

Fix: A lot of it should already get fixt by introducing the need for archers, if necessary, reduce respawn even further or maybe put supply respawn on a fixed timer, like champions , with a notification broadcast, wich will lead to more fighting over supps.

3. Champions are to Common and too Week

Fix: Buffing champions (effect and HP) but making them rarer. Champions should be valuable for what they bring to the fight not for the points.

4. Comebacks are rare and hard to pull off

Fix: Let breaker archer and champion kills reward a FEW points. Like this pointless rushing and constant pressure on the defending team actually becomes counterproductive and it shifts the focus to more “coordinated” team advances. Teams with a good defense can still win games after they get “behind in gates”. The mistessence will breakup “all-in-def-strategies”. Also consider making the mistessence always spawn on the side of the team that’s behind in points and not only the first time.

Alternate Fix: Remove time limit and point ticks all toggelter. (difficult because this can lead to VERY long stalled out matches.)

5. Just 1 map

Fix: More maps. Slightly deferent layout and routes, copy/past secondary mechanics from conquest if necessary.

But what ever you do DONT let this gamemode get to waste.

4. An option to toggel of other players:
- Mastery level
- PvP division
- Map completion stars

at, an OPTION to display:
- WvW level

Hey,

i heard that players that do the new chuka and champawat collection are also getting a mini tiger and a “back piece that isn’t a real back piece”. so i only have one question: why didn’t we get a mini raven for the nevermore collection? i have to admit im a bit jealous.

Deathly chill is a pretty strong trait in my opinion, if you have the right build for it that is. What i don’t like about it, is that it has lost a lot of flavor with the “recent” update, but i get why they had to do it. My suggestion would be to just change the condition that it applies from bleed to (a shorter) burn and rename the trait to “Freeze-burn” or something like that. this gives it a lot of flavor back and something like balthazar or flame legion runes might become a valide option for necros. more build variety is always a good thing.

we really need a “open all” option. people are already making jokes that Razer is paying them to implement all the double clicking, so that players wear out there mice and have to buy new once :P

an while they are at it. something like a dial to adjust which items are considered to be trash, as well as an option to disable the confirmation popup on savaging rares would be great to.

Hi,

first let me say that i really like the changes to dailie’s that were implemented with the spring update but i have another suggestion. How about a crafting daily? It’s no secret that most players don’t really look at their crafting discipline once they have it maxed out. If we would get a daily that is something like “craft item X” and give it do “NPC-Y” for “Z-Gold” it would have several benefits

1. Crafting makes sens again, for the players that have full gear and are not going for legendary’s at the moment.
2. It would give the devs a tool to tinker a bit with the economy, on a more regular bases, aside from expansions and quarterly updates, keeping, for example T5 mats, form becoming vendor trash, by adding a sink for them.
3. If the NPC pay’s out a litte bit over TP asking price, once per day, it would “provide a decent income to normal players” wich is what the devs stated they want to do in the reddit AMA, regarding the spring patch.
4. [bonus point] If you at karma recipes, for cooking, to the rotation you give players incentive to travel around, buy all the recipes that nobody cares about now and let them see more of the beautiful world of tyria + a small karma sink.

scoring changes are all nice and fine but it’s kinda pointless if there is nothing behind winning a match other then winning itself. so, i would suggest some kind of" WvW weekly" that rewards individual players, that have enough participation, based on the servers placement. it doesn’t need to be a huge reward but just something to give wining a “meaning”. i mean somewhat like the WvW tournament a while back, just automated and recurring on a weekly bases.

even though i personally would prefer LS3 over new legendary’s, at the moment, i hope you know that this decision builds up a big trust issue. who’s to say you not coming out in 2-3 month saying: “new fractals?… naaaa”, “WvW overhaul?… better not”,“living story?… i think our time is better spent designing gilders, to sell on the gemstore”.

To be fair i don’t know how difficult it is to change the server reset time but if its a more complicated process, that will take maybe a few hours, a little heads up would have been nice. just so that players know what to expect.

I 2nd that. happend to me to today.

I 2nd this. I’m recently playing a very fun build based on buffing the pet to ungodly amounts of might and quickness, that involves the trait “Zephyr’s Speed” and constant pet swamping. seeing when pet#1 is out of quickness, so that i know when i can swap to pet#2, without erasing possibly, leftover quickness, would be VERY helpful.

Hi,

I played a couple of rounds Stronghold during this and the previous beta and its relay fun but i have the impression that archers are pretty much useless. Players are dealing way to much damage to guards, so most teams end up spawning only door breakers and kill the guards them self, which usually, only takes one player to do.

I would like to see much more fights about getting the NPCs to the door safely, maybe by supporting them with heal, swiftness, protection or stealth, rather then just fighting for supply at mid all the time.

i thing guards need a significant buff, so that one player alone can’t take out 2 guards on his own. Also, one idea wound be, to make archers apply some kind of debuff, on guards, that causes them to take more damage, of course while reducing archer damage at the same time, so they no longer two shot guards. This wound mean it takes either 1-2 archers AND a player, 3-4 players, or 5 full archers to take out the guards.

How about?

“Apply 1 stacks of burning for 3 sec. in an area around you target, when hitting a foe with shroud skill 1 (1sec ICD, range 300-600, number of targets 5) ".

so you could still maintain 3 stacks burning but AOE. The ICS is so that reaper cleave or unyielding blast don’t trigger it more then once per attack. That doesn’t change much for reaper but is a significant buff for life/Plague blast

Still far away from what for example ele can do but it’s a start i think.

“Transfusion: Shroud skill 4 heals and partially revives nearby allies. Additionally you teleport up to 5 nearby downed allies to your location while channeling this skill.”

I can imagen that this has the potential to kitten off a lot of people. porting allies whiteout there consent i’s not a good idea, even if they are already downed. this opens the door for a lot of trolls and players flaming about “the noobs who port you in the zerg/AOE/mobs to die”.

also i would like to see health siphoning finally scale (better) of healing power so using healing power gear would make more sens for necros especially with the new Vampiric Presense trait.

BrunoBRS.5178:

Tharomir.6985:

Nokaru.7831:

And what was his profession before?

Warrior

wrong. Rytlock was a Rytlock.

he can wield sword/pistol and heavy armor at the same time.

(this comment isn’t meant to be taken seriously)

Actually the “hidden pistol” is a charr race skill. ;-)

I think hardware specs will be fairly similar to the main game, maybe even a bit lower? how about support for mantle? Hell, by the time it’s going to be released even win 10 and DX12 will be a thing, so i hope they use the opportunity to further improve performers. but overall I’m far more curious about the storage space requirements, as this could give us a hint of how big the expansion is really going to be.

that’s exactly why i think it might be the new specialization. copypasting most of the animations would save a lot of programming work for anet and we still get a different way of playing thief. lets say with less stealth and dmg but higher survivability through even higher mobility. and changing the skills for dual dagger if you become a, lets say, “assassin” (or what ever it will be called) will make it more of a choice to specialize rather than a just adding new skills and a weapon.

Hi,

let me just warn everyone that this topic will contain spoilers for living season 2 so be aware.

now that this is sad. do you guy remember episode 7, Seeds of Truth, where you play caithe in some flashback levels? we all know that caithe is a thief but the skills you can use in this levels are very different to what we have now, even if they look somehow similar. now i know that the skills were a bit OP so i’m not saying they have been final. but what do you guys think, could this have been another teaser of how the new specialization are going to work?

I’d say it’s either 34,95 or 39,95 in € and $, and a bit less in £. maybe it will include a “free” character slot, but maybe that’s only in the “ultimate, heroic, collectors, deluxe edition”, that they will most certainly sell to, for around 50-60 $/€, along with a bunch of goofy cash shop items like, a mini, boosts, bank express and so on.

oh, and lets not forget the bundle edition that contains the main game as well as the expansion. (ca.50 €/$)

to me that’s all fine giving that we still now very little about the actual size of the add-on. so lets hold on with the Anet bashing for a while.

sorry, wrong topic. pleas delete my post above.
but note that i have the same issue with the mailing list ;-)

I’d say it’s either 34,95 or 39,95 in € and $, and a bit less in £. maybe it will include a “free” character slot, but maybe that’s only in the “ultimate, heroic, collectors, deluxe edition”, that they will most certainly sell to, for around 50-60 $/€, along with a bunch of goofy cash shop items like, a mini, boosts, bank express and so on.

oh, and lets not forget the bundle edition that contains the main game as well as the expansion. (ca.50 €/$)

to me that’s all fine giving that we still now very little about the actual size of the add-on. so lets hold on with the Anet bashing for a while.